The Bermuda Triangle

[Jan]

As the dark nights start to draw in Adele and I start to look for our winter marathon (or should this be excuse for a holiday). We were very excited when we found The Bermuda Triangle. This comprises of 3 races over a weekend in January, 1 mile, 10k and marathon. If you complete all 3 you get 4 medals and 4 t shirts. That was us sold on the idea.

The first race was the mile which was at 7pm on the Friday night. The start was in waves, with the people doing the Bermuda Full Triangle (a half marathon option was also available) being the first to go. This was well organised and took place on the harbour in the capital Hamilton. It was perfect conditions, warm but not too hot and with a slight breeze. Apparently nobody has ever completed this in less than 5 minutes due to a couple of sharp bends, and there is a $10,000 reward for the first person to do so. Don’t think we ever had much of a chance as we were actually running with small handbags as we didn’t know where to leave them!! (We had come straight from expo that day, which was properly the worse expo ever and very badly organised, but at least this stopped us from buying more running gear that we don’t need)

Once the adults had finished racing, the local schools took their turn racing and there were some very fast children that night.

Saturday was the 10k and we were up early for the hotel bus to take us to the start. This was at a sports stadium back in Hamilton. As we were driving to the start instead of getting lighter it seemed to be getting darker and darker, and by the time we arrived the heavens had opened, and they did not stop. It was a tropical downpour for the entire race. Think Blaydon 2012, but even worse. The drainage system did not appear to cope with the volume of water and we were running through streams. It was a bit of a tough race in those conditions and surprisingly quite hilly. I can honestly say I did not enjoy it one bit and started to panic for the Sunday and thinking how awful it would be to run a marathon in those conditions.

Fortunately Sunday came and the weather was perfect. Another early start took us back to the harbour in Hamilton. It was very relaxed start with runners just lining up in any order. There was no segregation between those doing the half or the full.

The marathon is 2 laps of part of the Island. The sun was shining for the first half and the scenery was stunning. Part of the course was the same as the 10k so we started to get our bearings. The support on route was great, with the locals all cheering and clapping.

There were a total of around 600 runners so plenty of people for us to chat too on the first lap. The second lap everything changed. The roads were opened again to traffic, the locals started to get a bit bored and there were only 101 of us left. I must admit though, I did enjoy the second lap more as I knew the route by this time and knew where the sneaky hills were. I also felt like I had more time to look at the stunning views. It was however, rather strange to be running a road marathon and with no other runners around.

We had met a member of Low Fell Running Club at the 10k race who was doing the half. It was great to see him as we crossed the finish line taking our photographs. There were also people from our hotel waiting for us.

With it being such a small marathon and a small island everybody was really friendly and the whole weekend did have a lovely atmosphere. We were happy with our results as we came 18 and 19th out of the challenge. We were even happier when we got back to hotel and started on the cocktail list!!!

Davina