Old and new friends

My February race was planned to be a sunny jaunt be the seaside in Nice, France- however the weather had other plans for me and my flight got cancelled at the eleventh hour.. But I didn’t give up on racing, and after a few hours of googling I woke up the next day and caught a train to Bournemouth instead, on the south coast of England ahead of a ten-mile race on the Sunday morning. Well, they do call it the English Riviera. It seemed the next best thing to the Cote d’Azur.

One of the people that made the trip to Bournemouth possible was a dear, old friend of mine, Mawusi. Having lived in London on and off for a few years, she moved down to the coast last Autumn to go back to university and learn EVEN MORE STUFF!

In my mad race googling I’d realised a race in Bournemouth meant I could see her too and a frantic set of messages went back and forth as she gamely agreed to host me last minute.

Kind, funny and with an extensive and excellent movie collection, Mawusi is a great person to stay with. She loaded me up with baked potatos and baked beans (excellent night-before-a-race combo) and tucked me up in her own bed and slept on the sofa to let me get a good sleep- legend. In the morning I tried to return the favour by sneaking out as quietly as possible and heading off to the race.

Arriving at Lytchett for the race I smiled around me and was happy to see lots of other runners smiling back. There were lots of people up for a chat and a big thank you goes out to everyone whom helped create a distraction from the miles passing under our feet.

At the race end I looked around hopefully for a lift back to the train station, as the taxi had cost me quite a lot to get there. I asked a few other runners but everyone was going the wrong way, or had a car full already. Then, when hope was all but lost and there were only a few people milling about I got chatting to Tony Peach.

Although this photo looks liked Tony ran a mad and exhausting race that day, that’s not true- he was unable to run after breaking a rib during a skiing trip. However, he still did a lot of running around helping with the logistics of the race AND offered to give me a lift back to the train station- another legend and the perfect send-off from a very friendly race team.

WELL DONE DORSET!