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August.
About 700 were at the start line. I was talking with the girlfriend and ended up at the back. We had watched the kiddie races beforehand, with age groups of under 4, under 7, under 10 and under 12. It was 11.30 and the temperature about 29 degrees.
The race started, and as I mentioned, I was at the back, which was not where I wanted to be. For the first KM I struggled to find any rhythm, then the route took the narrow streets behind the seafront. There was not much room for overtaking.
At about 3km the road widened out, and many of the fun runners and holidaymakers had slowed to a walk. There were still 2.5km uphill to go. My plan for the race had been to give everything on the uphill bit, try to recover somewhat on the downhill, but still at pace, then try to hold on for the level finish.
Now I had room to move, I set about the climb. I was pleased to see that not many people overtook me. It was hard, hard work though, and I was glad to take a sponge at 4km. There were some nice ladies with hoses on the route aswell, how welcome they were.
We started on the downhill and I was pleased to see that the practice was paying off. I was easily overtaking people without too much effort. I have to admit, I had no Idea how the time was going as I was too busy with the race. When we reached the sea again it was a long 1.8km to the finish. My legs and lungs were killing me but I was holding together. On the run in I was passed by about 5 or 6 runners but also managed to overtake a few myself.
And there we were, at the finish line. The official time said 41' 42", but we needed 30 seconds to cross the start, my watch said 41'13" which I'm very pleased with.
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