Day 1 - Vatican City to Orbetello

5.30am the alarm bells rang. Team Run lept out of bed, into their cars and down to the Vatican City for the commencement of the 714km across Italy & France. The kit – looking brilliant with team sponsors - was handed out, photos were taken inside St Peter’s Square and then Chris Pateman-Jones AKA Cupcake, took the first steps of the run.

Morning team took off whilst Afternoon team took to a local Roman Café and enjoyed an espresso. The enjoyment was short-lived, as afternoon team returned to their hire car to discover a tasty ding had been deposited by an Italian with a questionable sense of direction. Morning team, not to be outdone by Afternoon Team, then got involved in a rather serious CRASH.

The Crash

Cupcake, Watson & Guppy (who is now sporting a fine looking pencil moustache), had completed each of their first individual 10 Ks. Cupcake was on his 2nd 10 K, 5 K in when up ahead he saw one car veer into another. It was a spectacular looking crash, made all the more dramatic when Cupcake realised it was in fact Morning Teams Ford C-Max that had been T-boned by a local. The local females car was a write off, whilst the Ford C-Max and considerable damage done to the front wings. It was at this point that Morning team remembered back to the discussion at the Hertz hire car depo in Nice.

Hertz - “Would you like excess cover?”
Team Run – “How much?”
Hertz – “105 Euro per car”
Team Run – “What’s our exposure if we don’t take the excess cover?”
Hertz - “1200 Euros per car”
Team Run – “OK, we’ll take the risk”

How silly that seemed now. Morning team, having considerable difficulty with the local Italian speaking police, did their best to explain the crash, which was entirely not their own fault. Following on from their discussions with the police and with Hertz, Morning team took a 60 Euro taxi ride to the nearest airport to pick up a new car. The whole episode took half the day to sort out. They nevertheless returned to the site of the crash and completed the remaining 25 K.

The Abduction

Afternoon team, upon hearing of the crash, decided it was best to commence their running from the pre-agreed changeover point. McKenzie started proceedings, followed by AG, followed by GK, followed by a dress wearing Richard Tipping. It was agreed before the trip, that the person with the slowest time from the day before would wear the dress – duly purchased from petticoat lane market. You could not wear the dress twice.

Aside from some map issues and an irate Italian farmer, confused as to why we had driven straight into his property, all had gone well. McKenzie & AG completed their second leg in temperatures nearing mid 30s and then GK commenced his 10K. That is when it happened. The car drove 3 km ahead of GK, perched themselves on top a hill where they could see every possible way GK could go. Like a stealth bomber, GK avoided the car occupants eagle eye and ran on. The car occupants were confused. How could GK have got past?? Well he couldn’t of said the car occupants. He must have been hit by a car… or maybe abducted, or maybe he’s gone off-road. McKenzie, AG & Tipping drove around for a good hour stressed that something terrible thing had happened to GK. On the hour, when we had all but given up hope, there he was, standing by the side of the road about 8 km ahead of the meeting point. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The Reunion

The cars re-united. Tipping commenced his 2nd 10 K, the final 10K of the day. Afternoon team drove off to catch him, before Morning team put in a polite phone call… It was Cupcake who politely asked ‘Are you aware that your boot is open?’. We weren’t, so were grateful for his innocent question. Team spirits were high as Day 1 neared completion. Tipping, in pain, was motivated to completion by the team yelling out messages via the team megaphone.

The run was completed. We were all rather sore, having found that Day 1s running was actually very difficult. We decided to reward our efforts we would travel into Orbetello and enjoy copious amounts of pizza followed by an ever-so-tasty Italian ice cream.

Day 1 complete. Only 4 to go.