the Gosport half marathon

16 November 2014

Shortly after eight on Sunday morning Commando and I were in Mattie Matiz setting off for the Gosport Half Marathon. Unsurprisingly it was raining. It seems I’m going to have to learn to love walking in the rain or give up altogether. The first option is difficult, the second impossible. This was the third Gosport Half for Commando and the first one we haven’t got lost getting to. Before you say anything he has always been both driver and navigator.

When we arrived at Bay House School we both felt like old hands. There was none of the usual not knowing where to go or what to do. A change of course and the pouring rain did throw a spanner in the works but nothing we couldn’t handle. In fact, things ran so smoothly we had time on our hands to listen to all the talk of PB’s, high cushion trainers, pronation, supination and the best gels to use going on around us. Honestly, it’s a different world.

Eventually it was time to walk to the start line. At least the rain had eased off. Commando looked relaxed. I was wondering where I was going to go once they’d started. This year, instead of a long, looped route, the race did two laps of the same course, most of it along the shore. My initial plan had been to walk in the opposite direction to the runners, towards Stokes Bay and Fort Gilkicker, just like I had the first time he’d run this race. Commando thought I should follow the runners towards Lee on Solent like I had the second time.
“The runners thin out within the first few minutes and it’s a wide pavement, you won’t get in the way when they come back,” he said.

Then I spotted a footpath, right beside the start line. You know I can’t resist an unexplored path. Once the runners were off I had a closer look. The trail looked slightly muddy but passable, running beside a narrow stream. This, I found out later, is the River Alver, giving it’s name to Alverstoke, the area of Gosport it is in. It flows south from its source northwest of Gosport towards the sea. Once it ran east into the lake near Fort Gilkicker but, when the Palmerston Forts were built, it was diverted.

For a while things looked good. Ahead I noticed a man, not at all dressed for rambling, chatting on a phone as he walked. This gave me confidence that the trail was passable and I wondered where it would take me. Before too long though, he’d turned back and was coming towards me.
“It’s flooded up ahead,” he said as he passed.

In hindsight I should have listened but I looked at his smart shoes and thought I knew better. There was a very big puddle stretching across the trail but I could see solid ground beyond. With the aid of my sturdy boots I made it across although it was deeper than I’d expected and there were a few hairy moments. On the other side I found Symphoricarpos growing at the water’s edge, rain dripping from the creamy white berries.

Before I’d gone much further I was stopped in my tracks by another deep puddle. This was more difficult than the first but I crossed. The third time was most certainly not lucky. The path in front of me looked more like a river than the river did. Even I had to concede defeat and turn back. Of course this meant recrossing the original two floods. As a consolation prize I did see a large, ragged mushroom I’d missed on my way in.

My footpath debacle had wasted almost half an hour and there was no time left to walk to Fort Gilkicker and back if I wanted to be on the finish line on time. My only choice was to follow the runners down towards Lee on Solent. At least they were well on the way by then and the road was clear. Sadly it isn’t the most interesting road in the world, although I did spot some more mushrooms growing on the grass verge and the rain had stopped. Every cloud and all that.

I made good progress until the first of the runners started coming back towards me. The path may have been wide and the runners coming in dribs and drabs but some of them seemed to enjoy running as close to me as they could even though I was keeping to the very edge of the path out of their way. Obviously they weren’t too happy with me being there and the whole thing made me feel distinctly uncomfortable.

As soon as I could, I crossed the road. About half a mile further on the sea came into view but the stream of cars and runners between me and the Lee on Solent Shore was too thick to even think about crossing. There was no choice but to continue towards the little parade of shops. The rain had started again and I was hot, getting wet and in need of coffee. All I found were greasy spoon cafés and even those were crowded. Just as I was about to give up I spotted a man along a side street under an awning drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. It was a coffee shop. In fact it turned out to be a rather good coffee shop called Pier Street Coffee House and it was almost empty. The original plan had been to grab a takeaway coffee but the rain was getting harder so I decided to sit inside and enjoy my drink in comfort.

Full of warm, fortifying coffee and with the rain stopped my brain was working a little better and I spotted a pedestrian crossing a little further along the row of shops. There was a grass verge on the other side so I pressed the button and waited. It took a while for the lights to change and, when I crossed, I still had a stream of runners between me and the beach. Sadly there was no pedestrian crossing for me to get through them so I waited patiently until there was a gap. When I say patiently, I mean tapping my foot in a less then patient manner and looking longingly at the beach. Commando’s friend Ralph ran past and waved. I wondered if I’d see Commando coming by soon but I didn’t.

The beach promenade was full of runners, a mixture of those on the final leg of their race and others coming towards the end of the first lap. For a while I watched trying to work out which was which but I knew I couldn’t stay too long if I wanted to see Commando cross the finish line. The sky was heavy with more rain. There were boats, their sails brilliant white in the murky distance and one little boat perched on a breakwater. Wondering who it belonged to I climbed onto the rocks for a closer look but they were too slippery to get close. Instead I looked at some bright orange bladderwrack washed up at my feet.

Keeping to the grass covered shingle beside the promenade I followed the line of runners back towards Stokes Bay. From my previous walk I knew the path would run out and I’d have to choose between going back to the road or walking more than a mile across the loose shingle. The shingle option would be exhausting and time consuming and I didn’t have that kind of time or energy especially if the rain started again.

The runners turned back to the road just before the end of the promenade and I was about to do the same when I noticed some steps going up to the grassy bank behind the foreshore. People were walking up there. On my outward journey I’d seen a footpath leading behind the hedge bordering the runner filled pavement. At the time I’d ignored it because I didn’t know where it went and I’d had enough of flooded dead ends, maybe this would lead me to it and back onto the road further along.

From the top the view of the sea was wonderful but, to my right the scrubby, uneven land was fenced off. A trail led beside the fence towards the road but not, as I’d hoped, along it. Then, just before I reached the road, the path split into two. One path led straight out onto the pavement where runners were zooming past, the other ran right behind the hedge. It was muddy, with deep puddles. There was a moment or two of hesitation before I decided to take the former. I’d had enough mud and puddles for one day.

At this point the pavement was divided into two by a strip of grass and an orange race day barrier. One side is a cycle path the other a pavement for pedestrians. The cycle path was teaming with runners heading for the finish or the turning point for their second lap, the pavement just a trickle of tail enders. I slunk along the very edge of the cycle path’s grass verge until I came to a gap in the orange barrier and could get onto the pavement. The very last runner was just ahead of me walking slowly with the tail end bike behind her.

By this time I was looking at my watch and hurrying, fearful of missing Commando’s big moment at the finish line. My pace was such that I easily gained on the struggling tail ender and passed her just as she got to the turning point. A lesser person would probably have given up knowing they had more than six miles still to go and were miles behind everyone else. To her credit, she turned and, looking exhausted, trudged back the other way. As Commando said later, the slow runners at the back are the real heroes, keeping on when everyone else has finished and is going home.

Despite all the false trails and hold ups I did make it back in time to see Commando at the finish. With the rain and a traitorous shoe lace that kept coming undone there were no personal bests this year but he wasn’t far off the time he wanted. As we drove home the last runners were still making their weary way along the promenade in the rain. I hope the tail ender finished.