The Morning after

I got up at around 6 and prepared my tried and tested Marathon breakfast: cereals (the healthy choice with little sugar), banana, milk and yoghurt. Unusual but healthy: some clementines and kiwis. And I started drinking water.
After the breakfast, I had a shower, put some vaseline on my feet, got my compression socks on and dressed up.
Abbey and Barry were already awake, so I went into their room excited like a little boy on Christmas eve 😉 We joked around for a wee bit before we thought better and got our stuff packed. And I drank more water.
Our landlady served another tasty breakfast and we wondered how to make her apple rings when we got home. We did another interview, packed the vans and got off around 8:30. Still drinking water.
At 9:00, Barry and I started at the church in Saint-Saens heading for Dieppe.

Check Point #1

The route from Saint-Saens and beyond was a constant upward slope which continued through to a great forrest. It only flattened out when we finally arrived at the Check Point – both of us were pretty much out of breath.
In between the steep parts we nevertheless had a good time, chatting along and updating each other about the latest developments North and South of the Channel. I had been looking forward to this a lot!
James had taken over the role of the German in the group and had navigated the vans to the rather hidden check point. Our stop was rather long and we fuelled up on water and bananas then went on.

Check Point #2

Shortly after taking off, we followed a major country road and had to run in single file, Barry running first to define the pace, and me after him.
When we entered the village – Les Grandes-Ventes – with the next check point, Barry started looking for a loo. We stopped at a bar, even though it was only 11ish it was packed with locals. The French seem to really like their drink 😉 While Barry went in I tried to get in contact with the locals, they had actually noticed Kirsten’s van with the “6 Marathons 6 Days” logo passing by, and asked about our run. Unfortunately the “Herzensangelegenheit” tin was in one of the vans, so no donations-on-the-go could be collected.
Barry and I pushed-on, we left Les Grandes-Ventes wondering where the supporters were and finally found them a bit outside the village. We were doing fine and so the stop was short.

Check Point #3

We both looked forward to this part of the journey, the route was supposed to follow a little river connecting some small lakes. Unfortunately we couldn’t really see either the river or the lakes. The route was going up and down all the time which was giving Barry a hard time to enjoy the great scenery. I tried my best to keep him entertained and not thinking about the next slope. Barry was brave – as one would expect from a Scotsman!
Again, we only had a short stop and went on to Dieppe.

Beyond the Finish Line and into the Sea

The hilly terrain up to check point #1 had tired Barry big-time, totally understandable, and I could feel it as well. The route led through an industrial area and was not very attractive so I tried to keep Barry motivated by giving close-by targets (and lying about distances a wee bit).
Finally, we arrived at the outskirts of Dieppe city centre, passed the harbour, and went straight ahead to the beach. We finished Day 4 after roughly 38 kilometres in 4:20h. F%&king amazing time for the fourth Marathon in a row!
Already the night before I had the idea of running into the Channel to cool down and freshen up. And so I did – and Barry joined in as well and cooled his tired legs.

From Dieppe to the Ferry

Barry and I got into “normal” clothes: Barry into compressions trousers, me into jeans and shirt 😉 We had some time left until the ferry took off and so we went to explore the harbour. The sun was shining and Kirsten, Aaron, James and I sat outdoors in a café with some drinks until it was time to leave for the ferry.
We had booked a room with shower on the ferry and one after the other got freshened up after this successful day. The rest was hanging around in the lounge.
We have booked a hotel only 4 minutes away from the ferry and will meet Rebecca there.

* That’s in reference to “Body movin'” by the Beastie Boys – listen to it on Spotify.