Meon Valley Plod 01 March 2009 Gavin Long reports: If this was a trial run for the Long / White 2 day mountain marathon team, then we failed miserably. Firstly, despite having SatNav, we couldn’t find the race start. It didn’t help that our map showed two villages called East Meon and we opted for the wrong one. Secondly, I am a shadow of the runner that Steve is when he is in this form, and I lost touch with him after 6 miles. This was probably just one long run too many for me, but this doesn’t detract from Steve’s fantastic performance by knocking 25 minutes off last year’s already impressive time. The continually undulating course in the South Downs challenged us with three unrunnable hills and stacks & stacks of cakes at the finish. Can’t we get a bakery to sponsor the Walden 10K ? I couldn’t submit this race report without mentioning the fact that Steve inadvertently packed his wife’s lycra running shorts. Unfortunately, the on-site shop did not sell shorts, so he had no option other than to ‘squeeze’ himself in. It is amazing that he ran for 3 hours like that. It seems too unfair to disclose Carol’s suggested headline of “cross country or cross dresser”, so I’ll keep that to myself.