Bacchus Half Marathon: 11-9-11

Today Steve and I headed to Denbies Vineyard in Dorking, Surrey to run the Bacchus half marathon. 13.1 miles in the stunning countryside nestling around Box Hill. Water stations were rumored to provide water and wine!

We arrived early and registered for the race which had been described as 'lumpy'!  We had a few hours to kill and so settled into the cafe at Denbies and enjoyed a naughty diuretic coffee, watched the world go by and observed people prepping for their marathons and half marathons.

We decided to head up to the start and watch the marathoners start their races as they were starting an hour ahead of the half marathoners. A variety of people were assembled at the start, some looked positively hardcore, others were dressed up in fancy dress including the race director!

We watched them begin their marathons and felt glad we were only running the half, after last weeks spitfire 20, our legs deserved a rest! Heading back to the car, the usual kerfuffles ensued as we prepped and laced up our shoes ready for the off. Once we got back to the start the children in the fun run were just finishing their 2.5k runs and I was amazed to see lots of small children crossing the finish line and collect their medals.

The half marathoners were soon sent on their way by race director Robin and we headed off into the vines of the vineyard to begin the first mile. The course was undulating and their were lots of hills, at about 4 miles Steve said his goodbyes and set off at his usual pace leaving me to run along side some girls dressed as Police officers! I found it very warm and struggled to keep a consistent 9:28 min/mile pace. I reached the water station at around mile 5 and decided to refuel with a gel. I've had lots of gels and am now well acquainted with a system for getting them down as quick as possible without being sick! However on this occasion, as I opened the gel it must have squirted out as I was quickly covered in orange slime! Nice, I still had 8 miles to run and I looked like I had been mildly tangoed or I had a seriously bad cold. Not much I could do but clean my hands off with the water I had left in the cup, dispose of my gel at the station and run on.

The rest of the race was a mixture of mud, hills, mud, hills, more hill and more mud. The views were stunning and I was gutted I didn't have my camera as you could see for miles. Soon you could see the finish line, but I knew it was about .7 of a mile off. I upped my pace and enjoyed a long downhill stretch to the finish line. My garmin time was 2:16:23, and with an elevation of 796ft and stopping to drink water I was very happy with that! Steve managed a 1:50, awesome time as usual!.


It was unlike any event I've run before, the finish area was a runners paradise with medals, t-shirts, fruit, water, cakes and tea and coffee. As part of our entry we were allocated a ticket for a hog-roast BBQ, so after our post race banana and water we then went on to eat a hog roast bun! Yummy! There was a glass of wine included but I'm staying off the booze before my marathon so we passed on that!

The race was well organised, with a real fun family atmosphere. The post-race food was yummy and very welcome. The actual run was much harder than I thought, there were long stretches where I was running alone and didn't see anyone, the views were stunning and we both found it a challenging course. We didn't sample any of the wines as we went round as I have enough trouble staying hydrated without taking wine on board as well! I would definitely reccomend it to anyone who wanted a fun filled race with a challenging course!