Above: B&R and Halesowen runners line up for the camera alongside the River Severn at Bewdley before setting off for Malvern (left to right: Mark Graham, James King, Matt Allen, Andy Nock, Alex Morgan, Billy Nock, Ian Keyte and Paul Collins).

Saturday saw a bunch of four intrepid B&R explorers (Mark Graham, Paul “Bluey” Collins, new kid on the block James King and myself) meet up with four counterparts from Halesowen AC by the bridge in Bewdley for their annual Worcestershire Way Social Run, a mere 31 miles to the Worcestershire Beacon at Malvern.

Luckily there was a café open so we could have a cuppa and exchange tactics with our hosts whose “pack mule” taunted us all with a bacon sandwich before setting off with all their kit to the finish.

The plan was for B&R to start first on the dot at 08.15 with Halesowen following 15 minutes later butt they decided to reduce this to 10 minutes so they would have more chance of catching us!

Billy Nock kindly offered to escort us for the first half mile or so as it was quite a tricky route but in hindsight he was obviously sizing us up for speed and ability!

Fortunately it was a beautiful day, unlike most of the previous week and opting for shorts and vests, off we went.

The route was very well marked and with Mark’s Boy Scout map reading skills we saw few problems ahead except for the distance.

We maintained an easy but steady pace and soon were eating up the mile, enjoying some intellectual banter about various locations en route such as “Joan’s Hole” and “Shaver’s End” and wondering about when the ‘Owen Boys would come galloping past!

Round about this time, whilst taking a photo, Paul decided to back into an electric fence and demonstrated how good he will be in our high jump squad!

James also decided to see if the same fence at the other end of the field was still electric and despite having a huge battery and wires connected to it, he grabbed it and also cemented his place in the field squad with Paul.

We didn’t have to wait too long as we looked back down a hillside we could see them catching us at an alarming pace.

As they caught us there were comments about us being seen taking short cuts and we informed them that if they had made a bit more effort they wouldn’t have missed our picnic!

We ran together for a couple of miles until we met our support car driven by Mark’s wife Deb with his two sons containing drinks, cakes and various goodies. We bade our hosts farewell and told them what we would like waiting at the finish.

We managed to keep up a fairly decent pace for the entire run which was pleasantly dry (except for where the floods had been) and supplemented our supplies by scrumping and blackberrying. Deb and the boys were absolute stars and met us on several occasions, letting us know how far we were behind the Owen boys before leaving us with 8 miles to go, promising to meet us at St. Anne’s Well café.

The sight of the Malvern Hills was very welcoming, even though we all knew we had to reach the highest point to finish and then get back down to St. Anne’s Well.

Special mention to James who has not been running long and really struggled towards the end but kept going, even though he looked ready to die at times and told us to leave him!

We reached the summit after 6 hours and 30 minutes, exhausted but happy and headed down the quickest (and steepest) way down to the café.

Here we met the others who informed us that they had taken a mere 5 hours and 45 minuters for the route and our excuses were soon made.
The tea and huge pieces of cake hardly touched the sides, the fresh clothes were donned and we all decided some “isotonic drinks” in a local public house were in order!

It was agreed that it is a fantastic day out and we would certainly be up for it again and would try to drag other B&R runners along.

We said our goodbyes and headed off at 5 p.m. to catch the 5.20 train (that Paul had promised his partner he would be on) back to Bromsgrove – or so we thought!

Upon nearing Great Malvern station, Paul informed us it was Malvern Link station that we had to travel from upon hearing which I resorted to Anglo-Saxon and “politely” told him it was a fair distance from where we were and James and I decided that the 6.20 would have to do! Paul, however with a look of terror on his face found superhuman strength and insisted that we took part in our own Race the Train and was off like a rocket. We ambled a long way behind, grumbling but somehow all managed to beat it.

All in all an extremely enjoyable event and certainly one for the diary.

Ian

P.S. To put the icing on the cake, Paul sent me a text the following day to inform me that we could have caught the very same train in Great Malvern after all! >:o(