Monday 26th March MARATHON 69

26th March - Day 73. Up at 6:15 with alarm. Not the best night, I was overheating and dad was freezing! I coughed a lot through the night, a bit worrying but. I am sure it was just the heat! Off for my run at 6:50 after a muck about getting my kit together. I ran South East towards Royan along the sea front. Still very dark out, the only sign of life was the dustmen doing their early morning collection. This area is totally different from the last two places, Blaye and Mortagne. This is 100% built for tourism, not bad just no real character. Anyway, the sun began to rise when I turned to run back by an amusement park thing on the beach! A nice morning run, back to our Motel and home cooked porridge and maybe some fried eggs! 8.34k in 58"37. I am going through a lack of strength phase, I seem to have no power in my legs! Dad cooked up a great breakfast of porridge with Honey, eggs and French bread and a nice cup of PG. Hopefully sufficiently refuelled and ready for the day ahead. I started planning the route, dad did all tidying and covertly smuggled the cooker and gas bottle back into the van! A beautiful morning emerged and dad took himself off for a walk and a bit of his own company. I tried to have a quick kip without too much success! Dad returned, we packed, I did not feel too good, I got ready, struggled to find clean shorts! Everything seemed to take twice as long! Eventually ready to leave physically, mentally I wanted to go to bed and get up tomorrow and give it a go! Dad and I had a few words, not good, about the morning, the route and anything else that we could think of to bicker about! Set off after a very down beat video at 11:45 an hour later than planned! I felt wrong from the start, hard to explain but I had no energy and my head seemed fuzzy! Anyway, our route was quite straight forward but not easy on sat nav! I ran on the D25 up past the Zoo, La Palmyre and onto a fantastic, very quiet coastal road. It was undulating, occasionally a bit too steep on the descent's for my knees but all generally good. Very hot out of the wind, most of this road was tree lined and sheltered, so very hot! It seemed to drain me totally of the little energy I had left. I again, as Cliff King has told me on many occasions, focused on the next step and the next kilometre and forget about how many kilometres there are to go! This helped but I still felt rough! We had a few directional issues when we reached Ronce, nothing major, I wanted to look around anyway! Eventually on to the D728e, over the bridge and to Marennes. The wind picked up which was good to cool me down but made the running tough! A few lefts and rights trying to stay off the main road and completed a very tough days work! Marathon distance 3'54"54, half way over the bridge to ILe D'Oleron! Still felt rough but the feeling was good to have chalked up marathon 69! I ran back down off the bridge met dad on the grass verge and enjoyed my orange and took on a lot of fluid! Back in the van and looking for a bed for the night, nightmare! We drove all round Marennes, no luck, through the country lanes to Brouage, nice fortified village, no luck! Long one short, 25 miles later we checked into a little 2* hotel in Rochefort! Third floor, no lift, small room and one bed! Actually not bad, apart from the above, I laid down and went straight to sleep for an hour. Woke up, had a shower, got on with this, now 10pm dad still asleep! Can't seem to get ice anywhere, they are all saying they do not stock until the summer, it was 28 by the van gauge, I have been to France in the summer and froze! Another day done.