Run2Paris - the lowdown
10 mates, 4 days, 2 cars…Run2Paris
One word to sum it all up is “Amazing” but read on to find out more about what we actually got up to and how it all went down…
Lets start at the start…compiling the crew of 10 people crazy enough to run from London to Paris! The aim was 10 so everyone always had someone to run with. 7 are TWD runner based in Sale and 3 were from afar! The final crew was me, Kaz, Kerry, Ali, Claire R, Carley, Jane, Gina, Helen & Claire D.
As I type the current fundraising total is sat at £16,913 including all the GiftAid donated. A figure we can’t get our heads round even now. A huge part of our success comes down to Ali and the most incredible idea of doing an online raffle. Using our network of M33 businesses 31 prizes were donated and over 650 tickets were bought - we raised £6500 alone just from that. Its totally overwhelming to have raised such a phenomenal amount.
But enough about that - you all want to know about what we did and how it went down so here goes…
Everyday everyone runs 1 leg of a 5 leg route - all different distances but all adds up to 225 miles from start to finish. So as we were 2 teams, we had 2 runners run from point to point each leg.
Day -1!
We all had to get to Wimbledon - Kaz and I jumped on the train, Gina & Helen travelled down from Peterborough/Cambridge together in the support car and then the Diddibox van left Sale full with all 6 seats taken.
6pm registration & safety briefing was our first stop. Here we were given our ferry tickets, all our race numbers, our GPS trackers, the baton and our Run2Paris tshirts. After this, we headed off for some much needed carb loading!
The Diddibox van got to London about 10pm and that wasn’t as drama free as you’d have hoped! 30 mins before getting to the hotel, 3 warning lights started glistening on the dashboard - an AdBlue warning alongside a spanner and the engine light - definitely not ideal. But a plan was created to get the van to a KwikFit down the road in Crawley to get it checked with a semi dramatic backup plan of hiring a van for the trip if necessary. So that was a little stressful but out of our hands and we had a plan but then the 2nd drama of the night occurred…Carley came to the bar and told us she couldn’t find her passport.
I mean WTF - it wasn’t anywhere. It was meant to be in her zip pocket of her bag but it just wasn’t there. A quick check of the van and a recheck of all her gear and nothing - we knew she had it on her leaving Sale so where the hell was it?? The van had stopped in Northampton for dinner so the worry was that it was there but a call to the wonderful manager at Bella Italia brought nothing - she even checked out in the carpark bless her. So it must have been in the van right?? Well turns out it was but we had to unpack the whole blinking thing to then find it wedged in between the boxes of stuff at the back of the van. But bloody hell - panic over thank Christ! Van all repacked and then off to bed. Not that anyone would get any sleep after that adrenaline surge!!
All the drama and we’ve not even set off year!! So onwards:
Day 1
We set our alarms for 4.30am to leave the hotel at 5 and get to the start line. The first runners left at 6am and we wanted to get there, get a hot drink and meet everyone before we set off.
So the race organiser Steve does a little welcome speech which was really cool and then introduced the “Golden Beret Award” which is a sequined beret given out everyday to a team for whatever reason they saw fit…and we got it on Day 1 for our epic fundraising efforts which was amazing!! What a way to get started.
The race then begins bang on 6am and our first two runners Carley & Claire D set off on leg 1 running out of Wimbledon to checkpoint 1. Then the teams had to split - Gina in her car took the next 2 runners (Kerry & Claire R) and Helen to checkpoint 1 and the rest of us drove to Crawly KwikFit to await them opening and to find out what the hell was wrong with the van.
Well the legends at Kwikfit prioritised our van and after 2 diagnostic tests it was deemed fit - the lack of AdBlue was the route of all the issues so with the hugest sigh of relief, we were back on the road and back in the game! Imagine if that beautifully decorated van hadn’t made it to Paris.
The routes on day 1 were long - most were 15-16 miles except the last one which was 11 but they took us all the way out of London to the coast in Newhaven. This was the most physically challenging day due to all the hills and the distance we were travelling. Some utterly incredible views were taken in and some unbelievable elevation gains were surmounted and we all made it to checkpoint 5 which was Newhaven Football Club. You navigated via an app called RunGo and/or via a GRX file on Garmin - easy enough to use after a bit of trail and error!
Showers were here and so was a lovely fish & chip supper. Breakfast and dinner were all provided by the event team everyday as part of the registration fee we paid so we only had to think about lunch and our own fuel.
After dinner we were off to the ferry (yes Day 1 was a loooooong day!!!) The ferry left Newhaven at midnight and it was a 4.5 hour journey across the Channel to Dieppe in Northern France. The Ferry…it wasn’t fun. Could have been a lot worse if we’d all got seasick but that’s the only way it could have got worse! But finally Day 1 was over and we were onto the next…
Day 2
We all only got between 2-4 hours sleep and then the ferry was coming into Port and Day 2 had to start! Day 2 was really different and much shorter. Every leg was approx. 6 miles so much more palatable than the previous day and the route was a lovely one down a disused railway track which had been tarmac'd - much easier to navigate than Day 1 as you couldn’t really go off route.
So off the ferry, we drove to a town called Greges where we had breakfast in the Townhall before the start at 6.30am. Front runners were Kerry & Jane today who set off to checkpoint 1.
Logistics were a bit mad to get the runners and stuff from checkpoint to checkpoint as the legs were so short but we smashed out all 5 legs and made it to campsite. It was very cute and our little spot was perfect. We turned up to pitched tents - dreamy!
We got to there about 1pm so we had the whole afternoon of no running which was needed especially after 6 hours sleep in 2 days! So we sorted out tents, faffed around with our stuff (something we had to do far too often!!) showered and all had a snooze
It was Claire’s 40th Birthday the day after Run2Paris was all over so we wanted to mark this with some games and fun. We’d taken a few bits & pieces to make a mini party and the weather was beautiful so on a picnic bench under some pretty trees, we dressed up in berets & moustaches and played a game of “Don’t be a DikDik” before having to head off to the Town Hall for an en mass dinner with the Mayor!
We had a brilliant dinner to end Day 2 with delicious food and the most inspiring speaker - Marina, a Regain Group ambassador who gave us a much needed inspirational talk to give us the boost we needed for Day 3
After dinner we walked back to the camp and got to our tents just in time before a storm rolled in. Chats in the tents for a bit before a much needed early night - I for one slept like a log except for the crazy rainstorm but it’s amazing what sleep can do to help you recover.
Day 3
Prepped for another physically challenging day with lots more hills but also the promise of the most beautiful landscape to run through helped us get up to get the race started at 6am. We awoke to the craziest of misty mornings - Ali & Claire were the first off today and OMG did they have the most beautiful start to the day. Sunrise and mist = joy! Some of the photos they got are phenomenal.
Leg 2 was a still misty & tough one for Gina & Karen but they battled through to complete the longest leg of the day. The sun came out for Carley and Jane & Kerry and Claire D but that posed its own challenges as the sun was relentless. We were able to meet runners on route at various points which we hadn’t been able to really do on other days so that was ace to give everyone a much needed boost (and water refill) but made logistics of getting from place to place even harder!!
I had the last leg of the day so Helen and I had the task of running to the 2nd campsite and it was amazing - we ran through some of the most beautiful French towns including where the artist Monet lived - very cool!
Campsite 2 was very different to the first, mainly because the cars were a 15-20 min walk away from the camp - not quite what you needed on day 3 of a running endurance event!! But the girls managed to get everything to camp without Helen & I having to lift a finger which was much appreciated after a 15 mile run!
Dinner this evening was in a huge tent marquee and it was a BBQ - so lovely. A much needed few hours relaxing with a few drinks and so many laughs - a night to remember especially when we were relishing in the fact that the next day we were running to Paris!!
Day 4
A rainy one - the only real bit of rain we’d had to deal with and we were counting ourselves extremely lucky that we’d had such nice weather as it honestly would have been such a different experience without the sunshine.
Kaz & Carley were up first and what a start we made it - we let everyone start as a group and then did our own TWD start with orange smoke flares and OMG what a way to start the last day.
There was a mix of longer and shorter runs today either 11 miles or 11k depending on your leg! I luckily had a short one after finishing with an epic one the day before and what a weird feeling it was to finish the final long run - all I had to contend with now was driving into Paris and running the last mile!
We all met at checkpoint 5 and cheered in the last runners of Jane & Claire D who had a quick change and then we all ran the last mile through the streets of Paris as 1 team of 10. It was utterly mad- we were all giddy as anything and when we saw the Eiffel Tower in front of us, it was just everything. We crossed over the Seine, over a road and then headed down to the river path where we ran as a long line of 10 hand in hand over the finish line. Something I honestly will never forget but somehow doesn’t even feel real.
An incredible amount of photos and selfies later, we went to the pub! Of course we did…the final checkpoint of a pub in Paris. A few drinks and some epic burgers later we headed back to our vehicles as we weren’t staying in Paris - I know right - more travelling!
We made the decision to leave Paris to make the next day easier. Claire R and Kerry got the lucky hand and got to fly home so we said goodbye to them as they got themselves into an Uber to headed to an airport hotel - was so sad for our group to be split up.
The rest of us got into our cars and headed out to Paris to Rouen, about an hour or so up the road - which meant our journey the next day to Dieppe would only be an hour - definitely one of our better decisions. Except for the fact that the Diddi van almost ran out of petrol on route but I wont dwell on that drama - I’ve waffled on far too long
Hopefully there are still some of you reading and I haven’t bored you all too much
The takeaways of the epic challenge of running from London to Paris:
I have the best group of friends ever
We laughed so so much and this is my overriding memory over all the other craziness
We can all do ridiculously hard things if we stick together
Exhaustion does mental things to you and you lose the ability to speak or formulate actual sentences!!
I need more things like this in my life - what crazy thing can we find to do next?? We wont run to Paris again but would absolutely do something like this again in a heartbeat.