The Lewes Marathon

[Sweder]

This may never happen.

Chatting over a pint of Longman with local hill cyclist and fellow Rooks fan @charliecat5 (Duncan) last Saturday, something flashed across my beer-addled synapses. Like the fleeting wisp of a dream, vanishing no sooner had you spied it. An idea. It dashed and darted, seeking the shadows, but I grabbed its tail and held fast.

Earlier that day Duncan had taken himself off to cycle the Six Hills of Lewes.
He'd set off from town, up behind the prison and on to Blackcap. Along the South Downs Way towards Ditchling, across the A27 (with a nod to Brighton & Hove's Flying Saucer at Falmer) and ascended the Big W above Kingston Ridge. Down into the Ouse valley, across the river and up, up, up to Firle Beacon. Finally down once more, back over the A27 and onto the last climb, up Mount Caburn, with its child's mobile hang-gliders, before dropping back into the town (by chance right alongside Harveys Brewery).

'How far was that?' I asked.
'28 miles' he beamed.

28 miles. Just a shade over 26.2, in fact. Hmm.

A week later I'm sitting here reading Facebook comments on my posted elevation map of the P2P course. Duncan is on there, as is MLCMMAN and another local Running Rook, @RobKRead. There's crazy talk of a Lewes Marathon, of mapping a course in the style of Feet In The Clouds (for the Bob Graham) or Bierzo Baggie (for the Aquillianos). Autumn weekends spent running sections, noting pathways, routes and rights-of-way, adjusting, tweaking, measuring. Writing, plotting, scheming.

I can't shake the notion that this is a Really Good Idea. Tom Roper has thrown his wise, well-connected hat into the ring, as will others as the idea grows and the word spreads. Like Ray Kinsella, I believe. I believe that if we map it, they will come. Out of the rape-seed, the ghosts of hill-runners past will join our wobbly frames to run again.

Clearly, trying to make any such race 'official' is a shortcut to madness.
But to hold an unofficial, unsanctioned, invitation-only event ...

... but no. I must away to my bed.
To sleep, perchance to dream ...