First play this song! youtube.com/watch?v=_kzpHzU...
This would be a weekend away with some friends from parkrun who happen to call themselves the bacon butty brigade (BBB).
So it started with a 7.30am start on a Saturday morning for the drive down to Margate to catch parkrun. As all 7 of us arrived out our weekend's hotel which happened to be 1-minute walk from the start of parkrun and a 10-minute walk from the start line tomorrow.
The parkrun was a beautiful run along the seafront high up on the cliff the sun was shining and got lots of comments about our pink bacon shirts. I took the parkrun nice and easy as didn't want to overdo it for tomorrows race but still managed a sub 27 minutes. It was a quick coffee and bag drop at the hotel and change of clothes for us all. It was then a day in Margate in Dreamland fuelled by Fish and chips and beer for lunch. Dreamland closed at 6pm and it was off to the pub before the Chinese meal we had booked. I learned something new if you're in a weatherspoons, you tell your friends (on social media) what pub and table number you are at. Then they buy you stuff via the weatherspoons app. We had shots, pitchers of cocktails, peas, biscuits, bacon and coleslaw turn up, so fun!
Then it was off to the Chinese restaurant all you can eat, we ate a lot and drunk more beer. Its go to said I felt very stuffed. But we did get to bed at the fairly sensible time of 10.30pm and at least i wouldn't have any screaming kids to wake me up in the morning and with a 9.30am start could have a nice lay in......
6am we all woke up, the dam seagulls make a lot of noise! I refused to leave my bed until 7am out of principle. As all slowly got up and ready by 7.30am we went down for breakfast. I had toast and a yogourt with a couple of cups of strong coffee and water. So we set off the race start and quite surprisingly not feeling to bloated or hungover.
My race preparation for this was 13km a month ago and 105km bike ride last weekend. So i not sure I was the best prepared for this.
The plan to stick to a nice easy 6/km pace for the duration and if i feel bad then i can slow down if I feel good I can speed up. A few other's of the bbb said thats the pace they wanted to do as well, so we stuck together for the first 500 meters and noticed they had sped up and I dropped behind keeping to my pace. It was a beautiful course much the same as the parkrun course. As we started we headed towards Margate and our hotel, where we would swing around a big green and loop back towards the start line again and head towards Broadstairs and Ramsgate.
I had been told it was quite a hilly course and sometimes it was as we went up and down the cliff edge along the coastal path the hills became quite steep but short, for this I power walked up, as felt that was a better usage of my energy as I would only run up slightly faster for a lot more energy usage.
As a approached the scenic Broadstairs I felt the need for a wee, but wasn't at the desperate stage. As we came through Broadstairs and along the promenade we had to do alot of weaving in and out of the holiday makers who didn't really look like they knew what was going on. But it was here I saw a public toilet on the route and thought I might not see one for a while. So in i went!
Coming out of Broadstairs and on to Ramsgate the hills become longer and not so steep which is where I saw some pink shirts up ahead. A couple of BBB had slowed down and I was slowly gaining on them (or as they put it we slowed down for you). I caught them just as we got to Ramsage and started the cutback. We turned into a residential estate and away from the coast (this was the worst part as we just ran along a normal road). I ran with my BBB friends until we got back into Broadstairs which someone had a great idea lets have an ice-cream as it was a very hot day.
So about mile 9 we stopped at an ice cream shop, I had snickers because it used to be called a marathon. It had to be the nicest ice-cream ever, but i am not sure because it was a really nice ice-cream or i just ran 9 miles and it was a really hot day!
Our fellow runners and the great marshalls thought where crazy, mental or just plain jealous! But after I ate it i had a new spring in my step and left the other two behind again, the route takes the same route as we can out on but the hills were softer on the way back which was great. As I approached the finish I upped my pace as still felt ok i certainly felt I had run along the way but still had the energy to push on.
I finished in 2hrs 18 minutes which is now my personal worst half marathon race time. Do I care? nope! It was a hot day, I hadn't trained, I didn't prepare the day before but it was a great fun weekend!
Picked up my medal which some people think is great i am not a fan of it and a t-shirt which is awful.
But all in all a great race and we are already planning next year's outing down to Margate!
the bacon salute goes back many a year a tradition handed down from father to son or they got it from Monty Pythons life of brian and as for the meaning errr its just a fun thing! but one of the photographers has now said he wont take photos of us if we doing it 
Barnstaple Half Marathon
Warwick Half Marathon
The Juicyju Bath Half dissected 
