Leg1: Premier Inn Thurrock West to Brentwood Holiday Inn (10.5 miles approx.)
Writing this from my room at the Brentwood Holiday Inn, which indicates that I have managed to complete the first leg of ‘The Great Orbital Ultra Run’ in one piece. Not without some rather arduous encounters and negotiations along the way including having to cross a very boggy stream to the point where I was submerged almost up to my waist and had to haul myself out of the water by grabbing onto some branches of an overhanging tree. And that was very near the beginning. It lost me alot of time and may have ruined one of my video recording devices, which got submerged (amazingly the footage was intact). It’s drying out now and I’m hoping it will be okay.
The live image stream from my mobile phone however, worked a treat at both ends (mine and at the gallery’s) apart from the fact that because the run took me longer than I had anticipated, I had to change batteries about half an hour before the end. GPS tracking worked too and shows my route as a strong black line right alongside the motorway- quite impressive. Thanks again to Matt and Isadora (the gallery attendant), who between them made sure it was working as it should be. Strange feeling that I can’t actually see it for myself as I’m here, but I got a sense of it by going onto the www.toomanylegs.com website (no pun intended- it’s the name of Matt’s host website).
Feeling pretty tired and a bit sore- not so much from the running but from the multiple scratches I received from ploughing my way through brambles and climbing fences with barbed wire. I am strangely excited and encouraged though by the fact that I’ve managed to get through the first day. It’s certainly given me a taste of what’s to come. What’s for sure, is that it will take me longer than a normal run- what with the terrain I’m having to negotiate- this certainly ain’t no road run, plus the fact that today was one of the windiest and I was running (half walking) against it quite alot of the way. Oh and I also crossed two railway lines- the junctions I was worried about weren’t so bad after all.
Tomorrow, I make my way to the Bell Hotel, Best Western, near Epping- a distance I have predicted is 12.9 miles, but which will probably work out at least one more, if today’s anything to go by. Even though today’s junction crossings were pretty straight forward I AM worried about the huge one, Junction 27, which is where the M25 and the M11 cross paths! Am hoping that like today they may not be as bad as I think.
Will sign off now and leave you with a few photographs to mark the day.
