Birmingham to London runners saved from dysentery?

First thing this morning I cycled back to Shrewley to buy a newspaper. I went by road as the towpath was rather muddy. By towpath it would have been slightly more than a mile; by road, although reasonably direct, it seemed to be about three miles each way.

And then it was off down the Hatton flight - but first, an appointment with the Elsan disposal point.  Here I was astonished to find two large (40 litre?) drinking water containers being filled from the rinsing hose for the portable poo tanks.  Two white vans were parked there, with three people in hi-viz vests filling the containers.  I asked what they were doing, and they said that the café had said that it was the same water that went to the canalside water point.  Well, yes, but was it to be used as drinking water?  Yes, they said brightly, it was for the Birmingham to London runners.  I pointed out that the hose they were putting in their nice new water containers had previously been down the neck of a loo cassette, just like the one I was holding.  They then - rather reluctantly - poured the water away and started talking about getting some disinfecting tablets from Boots as they drove away.  I hate to think how many runners might have been doing rather more running than they bargained for had I not just happened to come across this.  There were no signs indicating that "This is not drinking water" as there usually are by Elsan points.

Until that point I hadn't noticed the dribs and drabs of runners with numbers jogging down the towpath.  As we made our way down the locks they came past, but they seemed to be more the tail-end Charlies than the elite super-marathoners.  There was a semi-official-looking photographer and a smattering of watchers near the CRT "Welcome Station".
 

Once we had passed here, i.e. having done four locks, a volunteer lockie started going ahead and setting the locks for us. That was very handy for the next six locks, but then he walked back up the flight leaving us on our own again. But that was fine, I had my bike and we worked efficiently. We did the whole flight of 21 locks in 2 hours 45 minutes.

Some of the paddle gear sported shiny new stainless steel bolts.
 

We stopped for lunch just above Cape Locks; then moved on to Leamington Spa, where we have tied up outside Lidl.

One thing I forgot to mention a couple of days ago is that we saw many bats in Brandwood Tunnel.  They were flying around, buzzing the boat, clearly picked out by our tunnel light.