By Mike Norton
It was my third Cornish Marathon organised by East Cornwall Harries. It is a road marathon with over 666 metres of elevation but takes in some amazing views over Bodmin Moor. It is an exceptionally good value race £30 gets you a medal, hoodie, Pasty, Tea, crisps and chocolate bar! Starting at Pensilva (where you do two laps of the village) the route takes in many local landmarks including Golitha Falls, Colliford Lake, Dozemary Pool, Jamaica Inn, Bolventer and Valley and King Doniets Stones. Spencer made me laugh at the start he said he could see any runner fatter than us so we were going to come last. I looked around and he was right it! The race is used on the Cornish Grand Prix series so attracts a quality field of skinny runners.
Spencer had a deferred place from 2019 as we had planned to go down with JD but both Spencer and JD could not make it. Spencer made it down but caught a stomach bug the day before and JD’s illness had just started and he didn’t want to come down. JD unfortunately has now passed away so Spencer and I wanted to go down and do the race for JD and I am sure he was there pushing us on!
The forecast was for rain all day we were actually lucky it was pretty dreadful at the start but cleared up on the second lap of Pensilva. The rain was a little heavy at times and it was pretty windy but fortunately the wind was on our tail for most of the day. I struggled it was my third marathon in 5 weeks the other being a lapped marathon on the Thames Tow Path with Phoenix (5:05) and my legs never really got going and there is plenty of hills to run up and down. Still Spencer helped me grind it out. Spencer was a fantastic running companion and even ran ahead to the Jamaica Inn to buy crisps and
chocolate. I could have done with a pint as well! There were water stations every 3 miles and plenty of Marshalls on the Course to cheer you on.
We crossed the finish line together although he would have beaten me easily! We got around in 5:26:54 (which was just over an hour of my course PB!) and we were still ahead of at least 40 other skinner runners! We may not have come first in the running race but in the Cornish Pasty eating competition, we were clearly in the top two.