Beat the Bore, At Night (20 September 2013)

I Beat the Bore.  The Severn Bore is the wild phenomenon that happens when especially high tides meet up with the flow of the River Severn.  It isn’t unique but, due to the shape of the mouth of the river at the bay it results in one of the largest bores in the world (people surf upstream on this, for example…here’s some video).  It is truly impressive and worth a detour if a large one is happening when you are in the area.

I wrote the organiser asking if I could get the meal before since I had to leave from the finish (the rest were taking a bus back to the start but since I was on public transport it was better for me to run the 5 miles back to the New Inn than the 12 from the Anchor).  They never replied, at least not yet; so, once they do I will tell the race marshalls  that I won’t be using the bus back to the start–one of their demands in the starting instructions).

The race started at 9 pm due to the Bore developing late.  The idea is that you get a 15 minute head start on the tidal wave and you run the 7 miles to the finish against the waters.  With it pitch black (although a full moon, the clouds obscured it), and humid so that my glasses steamed up I was running mostly blind and just tried to keep pace with someone else about my speed.  For a while I was even leading until he realised I was taking us far off course into the adjacent pastures…my cat was going to love the cow shit and sheep shit on the running shoes.

I finished with a few minutes to spare and went to the river bank.  The roar of the bore was tremendous and the wave itself curled up on the banks like the opening credits of Hawaii 5-0.  The water levels rose 10 feet for a few minutes but the initial thrill lasted only the few seconds until the wave passed.

Oh, the ‘medal’ was hand cut from River Severn drift wood.  I’m going to mount it in my souvenir skittle ball which I carried for ballast the length of the trail.