Marathon Day 63, Tuesday 17th May - Sunderland, Silksworth Sports Complex

Despite my worst fears we had an uninterrupted, quiet, trouble free night.  A visit from the local Bobby on his bike the previous evening warned of  “a few locals that had recently been causing mischief!!”  Thankfully, they didn’t turn up last night.

Awake at 6am with an easy set up ‘cos we were already in situ!

The course today was approximately 2.5k, circumventing the park lakes and requiring Andy to run 19 full circuits (plus start & finish straights) to run his 50k.

The Mayor and Mayoress officiated at the start and sent Andy and his accompanying runners on their way.

Andy and a fellow runner getting ready - shall we hop the marathon today? . . . . . . . . 

. . . . . . . Naw- we'll run it as usual!!

It was at this stage that I discovered that the large Timer repeater Display was not functioning (again) and investigation revealed that the plug had become detached from the cable connecting the unit to the battery. When reconnected, however, the display flickered randomly indicating a more serious fault.  So today’s marathon was timed using only the official timer unit without the option of the  large format Display.

Richard at  ECM, our sponsors who supplied the unit, suggested a couple of things to try but so far I have been singularly unsuccessful!  Looks like Ellie will be taking a trip to ECM at Burstwick to collect our original Display that is apparently working perfectly.  Really need to have it working for our final day in York on Friday!

Excitement for the day was provided in the form of a brief shopping expedition to the supermarket for provisions for this evenings meal (fajitas, courtesy of Nikki) and tomorrow’s - Lamb Stew and dumplings, by yours truly.

Actually, that’s not strictly true - the Sports Complex was hosting  a School Athletics competition today which featured some extremely good junior athletes and provided interesting and quite exciting viewing.

Unfortunately though, as a result of this event, the car park  filled to capacity and we had to wait until it emptied before we could extract ourselves and move the short distance to Durham.

Andy finished in a time of 6hrs 38mins in good form.

Triumphant at the finish - again!!

We found the TA Barracks in Durham without any problems, save for a little traffic. Some interesting manoeuvring was necessary, however,  to position the vehicle for the night and for our base tomorrow.  I'm hoping that extraction will be a little easier although the Barracks Commander is already selling tickets to view the event!!!  Let me simply say that  I have asked Barry NOT to find me anything more challenging for the remainder  of our travels!

Now - How did that get in there? . . . . . 

. . . . . . and more importantly - how do we get it out? lol.

Dinner was delicious - thank you Nikki - and we also thankfully managed to finish off the remnants of the various cakes that had accumulated MMmmm!

Hey Ho - another day over . . . . . . and only 3 more to go!!!

'Nite All

Benji's Blog
Number 63 today Benji. Do you remember when you put the number 1 flag in the map? It seems a long time ago doesn't it.


I think that I can see a little smile on Champ's face, and maybe  one on Shine's as well.  They are looking forward to getting home to be with you the same as me.
Take care my little one and I will see you soon.
Lots of love and kisses


Daddy


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