import timeit
def catastrophic(n):
    pat = re.compile('([a|b]+)+c')
    text = "%s" %('a' * n)
    pat.search(text)

from functools import partial
for i in range(100):
    cata = partial(catastrophic, i)
    print "The function lasted: %f" %timeit.timeit(cata, number=1)