102.3 Km – 13H55’
Altitude : 120m
An average of 8.09 km per hour
Good morning everybody,
This morning the wakeup call is at 2:15 for a departure at 3:00 in front of the Casino of Dieppe, at the foot of the castle. Jacky de St. Paul and Arnaud de Montaure from the neighboring departments of l’Oise and l’Eure are waiting and ready to accompany Serge. Our friends from the Dieppe chapter of the CJD are here: Frank, Yves and the others.
Arnaud stops after 50 km, this distance being a first for him since he has never run more than a marathon. Jacky, a seasoned runner, does his 75 km.
Our three fireflies run for five hours in the pitch dark which cloaks our small coastal roads as well as the Dun Valley. Trucks heavily loaded with newly harvested sugar beet displace a huge masse of air when they pass us.
The sun rises over Crasville-la-Mallet just as the France Bleue radio station calls Serge for a live interview. Serge takes off again and jokes with his fellow runners.
The camper catches up with us and we organize the rest of the day’s program because today counts double, with 102 km on the meter. Serge is equipped with a Garmin 310 XT GPS watch which registers certain data every day. We hope it won’t be long before we can share it with you via Internet.
1:30 PM Serge arrives in Bec de Mortagne at the first school of the Goderville district where we have an appointment. Unfortunately, due to a mix up of signals, we miss the 3 classes (CE2, CM1 and CM2) that were waiting for us at another spot. It’s the only “bug” of the day since Serge continues his route to the schools of Tocqueville les Murs, Grainville-Ymauville (our home town), Vattetot sous Beaumont, Bréauté and lastly Manneville la Goupil before reaching the headquarters of the communauté de Communes where a warm welcome awaits us.
Serge finishes this physically exhausting stage with morale of steel, boosted by all the encouragement he receives from the school children. It’s exhilarating…
Thanks to everyone for this wonderful stage: to the ComCom campagne de Caux and its sports and cultural commission, to the children who waited for Serge, sometimes for quite a while, for all the ovations and to all our friends who came to run with him…What joy! At 7:30 PM Serge was in bed after a hearty meal at the home of Jean-Yves and Brigitte, our friends and neighbors.