Left the hotel at about 10 past 7, arrived at queue to Official Park and Ride at Sussex university at approx 7.35, queued on the dual carriage way and queued and then queued some more. Nothing seemed to be moving, eventually arrived at the entrance to be told it was full and were directed to Southern water – the next park and ride on the list. Queued again, that was full too, but eventually they opened up another small car park so we legged it to the bus, goodness knows where the rest of the poor people went, it was a good job that the start was delayed because I only just made it to the start before the official start time of 9am. The rest of the Park and Ride people were still arriving when the gun eventually went off at 9.15 or so.
After the late arrival at the start I began to queue for a loo, waste of time, we were called to the “corals” before I got to the loo. I was an orange starter – right at the back of course and by the time I got to my designated coral there only seemed to be about 20 people behind me. It took 20 minutes or so to get to the start line, why they bother with a gun time I do not know, if you were trying for a good for age place or something it would be extremely disappointing, as it is, my finish time is logged as 5 hours 30 something, my age related time is estimated on that time, plus my position, why don’t they do all this on the chip time? My chip time was 5:10 something. (Garmin stats at the end of this report.) Enough of this rant, (and enough repetition of "something")
Shuffled forward towards the start, glad I had put on an old sweatshirt as it wasn’t the warmest at this point although the sun was shining bravely. I didn’t see Steve Ovett, although I believe he was the official starter? Slow, slow start. Lots of people walking after a few hundred yards. Out of the park, around the corner, up the hill, back round the park and on to the London Road.
I felt great, breathing was even and steady, legs were feeling fine, I eased in to a steady pace passing people and dodging the walkers. I Passed Mr Testicles – what a brilliant outfit. I kid you not, this man was wearing a giant hairy scrotum on his shoulders and covering his head to raise money for testicular cancer, Brilliant! We ran in front of the pavilion and then round The Level. This is a park area notable for being particular flat in what is a very hilly city. When I was a child Billy Smarts Circus used to set up here every year. We had ringside seats one year, and the thing I remember most about that occasion was that they had Polar bears in cages in the ring – imagine! It seems a million years ago. We headed up through Kemp Town, a nice long slow hill :-( and then out on to the coast road to Ovingdean. Was still feeling good, but this is when things got a little tricky for me, I’m used to hills, but I’m not used to running on the side of a hill, (I suppose that’s why my legs are of equal length?) From this point onwards we were running mostly on just one side of the road with a very pronounced camber. The faster runners were occupying the other side of the road coming towards us lowly folk. The first time the camber became a problem for me was at about 8 miles when I stopped to get some Vaseline to put on a hot spot on the inside of my right heel – I never have problems with blisters normally. Within another mile my left calf was beginning to cramp badly. I had to stop to try and stretch out the muscle, it worked momentarily, but came back with a vengeance. Plan B was put in to action, walk/run, I ran until my calf became too painful and then walked until it eased slightly.
Proceeding like this we approached a large roundabout, in my innocence I thought we proceeded up the hill, but no, it was a left turn and into Indian Country, running out to the school at Ovingdean only to do a U turn, run back again and then left at the roundabout and up the hill, to do another U turn and run back along the other side of the road. Sorry Sweder, I must have missed you at the school.
The run was a whole series of U turns. Not my favourite sort of course, I always find it disheartening to run alongside people who are running much faster in the opposite direction, knowing that I still have far more miles to cover before I’ll be running the same stretch again.
Running back along the coast road we switched carriageways at about mile 11 or 12, great, this time the other calf came out in sympathy, I had probably been inadvertently putting more weight on it anyway to shield the left one so the switch to the other camber just exacerbated it. Oh well, although I was run/walking, I reached the 13.1 mark ahead of my recent Wilmslow half mara time, so I was feeling slightly chuffed – although the race results have me down as doing the half in 2 hours 49 minutes!!! my Garmin and my watch gave me 2 hours 22. I had a pacing band for 4hours55 on my wrist and was 3 – 4 minutes in hand to achieve this right up until mile 23 – ah well, another time perhaps.
For the second half of the race we were pretty much constantly running against the flow of runners coming back in the opposite direction, dispiriting but I plodded on. The occasional urge to say "sod it" and cross the road and run back was quite strong on occasions, particularly when we ran along a very long suburban road – I don’t know where it was and I don’t think it was on the original route plan??? Incidentally, I hear on the Runners World grape vine that some old guy who appeared in the Argus as doing a really good time apparently did just that – he cheated. The person who spotted him says they have seen him doing the same thing in previous races too…why would you do that?
The race ground on, I slurped my SIS gels at regular intervals, I got water from every water station, some of which I drank and some of which I used to recharge the small sponge I carried…that was bliss, just to wipe a cold sponge across my face and round my neck, I recommend it :-)
The section out to the Power station was pretty dire, at one point we ran a hundred yards or so across a wasteland of dockyard to turn a corner to be greeted by a band playing – virtually no spectators at this point and it all seemed to be getting a little surreal. Yet another U turn, but at least we were now heading towards the finish. I was having to walk more frequently now, but funnily enough my running/waddling/staggering pace after a walk was still enough to overtake lots of people who had overtaken me when I was walking. There was one woman whom I had noticed right at the beginning who had rather distinctive red legs – I’m not being rude to the poor woman, but she was obviously suffering either from radiation or rosacea , anyhow, they were distinctive. It became a matter of personal pride to beat her…I had kept pace with her all the way along, she would go ahead when I was walking, I would catch her up and pass her when running. On the sea front with the pier a dim distant speck I passed her and she never caught me again. This personal victory obviously makes me a really sad old woman, but at the time it was strangely satisfying! The calves were screaming, but I ignored them the best I could and just kept going, resigned that it would be a "get round" marathon rather than a pb, but to be honest, it was only a month ago that I thought the game was up entirely and I would have to scratch.
Mr SW had met me at mile 14 and relieved me of my cap. Just after this I was by now desperate for the loo, there were several along the course, but as usual not enough to satisfy demand! - even at this stage I queued for over 4 minutes. I massaged and stretched my calves while waiting. I met Mr SW again at about mile 25 when he relieved me of my SIS gel belt, (only 2 left out of the 7 I had packed) then helped me enormously by running alongside me just the other side of the crowd until a few hundred yards from the finish. Actually the crowds at this point were a bit intimidating, there were no barriers to keep them back and they seemed to be pressing forward narrowing the course rather, plus there were a few stray dogs dodging across the path of the runners and people crossing too.
At last the Palace Pier was passed and the finish was duly crossed. Nice goody bag, and a lovely paddle – should have gone for a swim really. 5:10:35 on the Garmin… and a 4minute 50 seconds stop recorded, at a distance of 26.78 miles. So 5 hours 5 ish, not bad for an oldie I suppose. The weather was lovely - I have a perfectly straight tan line just below the back of my knees where my ¾ tights finish!!
Would I do Brighton again if it is held next year? Possibly, I certainly wouldn’t trust the park and ride scheme though, it made for a lot of extra stress at the start. The road camber is also a factor that might sway me not to repeat the exercise. I talked to a lot of other people along the way that had similar calf pain which they too attributed to the camber.
I have checked on my training miles - 369 miles covered. I think the “less is more” attitude suited me perfectly, I didn’t do any more than 5 miles in distance for each of the 3 mid week runs and I stuck to Hal’s prescribed long weekend runs, except when I was ill. I felt absolutely great before the start, no injuries, no niggles and lots of energy and to be honest I felt great at the finish too except for sore calves. I still had plenty of energy, walking several miles on Sunday afternoon although mr SW pronounced he was exhasuted with standing around all day !! My thigh muscles were back to normal by Wednesday/Thursday, I did treat them to a long Power Plate session at the gym on Tuesday night. My calves are still sore to the touch, but fine for walking. I’m just about to go for my first run, I’ve been swimming this week and cycling to work as usual but thought I would delay my first run for a week. I’ll let you know :-)
(Attached pic courtesy of Marathon Photos.com)
Sounds like they have a lot of work to do on the park and ride, as well as the loos, next year. I wonder if anyone had thought about the camber issue beforehand? It's a real shame that you had the calf problem when you were going so well, and after all the problems you had to overcome during training, but at the end of the day it still looks like a pretty damn fine result.
I think the split is done on gun time not chip time. Otherwise you and I would both be on negative splits, and I think we know that's not the case. Your training miles are almost exactly the same as mine (I only did two midweek runs, but up to 10 miles). I think we're proving that unless you're looking for a PB, nice 'n' easy is the way to go. Hmm, maybe there's space in the market for one more training manual...?
I hope this result spurs you on to find a more even-cambered marathon, and maybe next time the stars will align correctly and you will run the perfect race.
Photo of bollock-man (among others) here. He has to be seen to be believed.
Thanks Suzie :-) Dan I think you're right about the training, shall we do the manual? I'm really good at the carb loading bit, and i could also write the section on training with beer;-) I feel absolutely fantastic at the moment, had a three miler yesterday and it was a breeze, calves are tight and sore to touch but fine to run on - yeh, tempted by the Chester marathon at the end of May - nah on second thoughts, I'll just be running for FUN, I also have to do lots of upper body work to stop the ostoporosis getting any worse in my spine. My kids have threatened to take me climbing, well bouldering to be precise, the "look no rope" stuff!
Great stuff SW! A unique insight to the trials and tribulations of setting up a new city marathon. I'm sure the organisers would appreciate your candid feedback. Not sure what they can do about the camber but I expressed severe reservations about the u-turn nature of the circuit from day one. Personally I would hate to 'run against the flow' of faster runners for more than half the race, so more power to you for sucking it up and knocking out a very good time. The fact that you're running again and feeling good shows your training schedule was right for you. I don't think there's any way to properly prepare for running at an odd angle (except perhaps for offroad training which helps build ankle/ foot strength). 'Less is more' seems to be working for quite a few of us
As a city marathon Brighton has to be careful not to be too adventurous with the course. Rock-hoppers and hill-beasts would love to see our beloved downs come into play but that just wouldn't work (although it would remove the out-and-back boredom).
Well done!
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Cheers Sweder, I run on a camber a lot of the time on the pavements around here, plus the pothole "repairs" make them more like off roading :-( However, I do heed the advice dished out by my physio who said to be sure to cross the road frequently to even out the leg hammer. Maybe I'll just stick to one side for longer if I train for it again!
I can quite see why the organisers restricted the course to the seaside hinterland. I used to live up the Ditchling Road across from Hollingbury Park and I certainly wouldn't have liked to run around there.
I forgot to add, the 4 pints of Harveys afterwards slipped down a treat and the Fish and Chips were excellent...I still can't get used to Brighton being referred to as a "city" It was still very much a town in my youth. I had lots of nostalgic fun during the marathon.
Sounds like you've mastered the old run-walk technique if you were overtaking run-runners.
Wind them in-overtake them-gain some ground-let them overtake you again-repeat process 5 times. This is psychological torture and you've probably put Mrs Red Legs off running for life.
