Newcastle Town Moor marathon 2017

I haven't done a road marathon for over a year - the last one I did was Morpeth to Newcastle and I was very happy with a sub 4hr 30min time there. The weather conditions on the Town Moor can be very variable and if it is windy it can be a bit of a nightmare. However, the forecast for this year was cold, sunshine and small amount of wind and that turned out to be accurate.

I last did this event in 2012 and I had completed it the previous three years. By that time I had had enough of laps of the Town Moor. It has taken me five years to come back and give it another go. They have changed the course since I last did it, the one hill which you covered five times has been omitted and we now do seven laps. I not a great fan of lapped courses so I knew this was going to be a mental challenge.

I had expected to see about four or five people I knew, but it turned out of be far more than that, probably about twenty people, some running the full marathon, some the half, the organisers and some of the marshalls. That made it so much better. It was particularly good to see Kate from Fetcheveryone who I haven't seen since we ran the Northumberland Coastal marathon together a few years ago. The marshalls were as encouraging as they always are at this event 😀

There was no particular plan, I thought it might be good to get sub 4hr 30min, but I would be happy to get round. Since Goathland last Saturday, I have had an ache on the left side of my right knee, but I am only really aware of it when running downhill or uphill. As this course is pretty flat I was hopeful it wouldn't be be and issue and it wasn't.

There were probably about one hundred and fifty doing the marathon, maybe slightly less doing the half (who set off an hour after the marathon).

The course ? Well what can I say, it was the Town Moor, if you have ever run there you will know what it's like. Flat, no trees or shrubbery on the moor itself. There is a section where you run on the pavement close to the road which isn't much fun, but that isn't too far from the end of a lap so I was just focusing on getting the lap finished. However, there is short part which is in Exhibition Park where you run round the boating lake and past the Wylam Brewery which is more attractive.

I set off at a pace what I thought was gentle, but I was feeling pretty good and I speeded up more than I should have done with hindsight. But if you don't try running a bit faster, you will never know what you are capable of.  Also it was very cold throughout the race and I wanted to get a bit warmer. I had three layers on for the first lap and my hat and gloves never came off.

Thanks to George Routledge for this photo taken towards the end of the first lap

For the first lap I was wearing a base layer, short sleeved top and a windproof jacket as I was so cold. The jacket came off at the end of the first lap.

My first half was really good 2hr 2min. I knew I would slow down in the second half as a consequence of running Goathland last weekend. However, I thought I had banked enough for a sub 4hr 30min finish.

At 16m the wheels started to come off and I had my first walking break. However, lap 5 wasn't too bad, but things started to go downhill in a big way on lap 6. I still expected to be less than 4hr 30min at that point, but the final lap was worse. Twenty minutes from the end, I knew I wasn't going to make it, so I just took it easy from then on and finished on 4hr 33min, Pretty close, but not quite there. First half 2hr 2min, second half 2hr 31min tell its own story

Chatted with a  few people at finish before heading for the 'Cafe in the Park' before heading home. The goody bag was impressive for the price  of entry 😀 Besides the hat and medal, there was a smartie packet and a bag of crisps but they didn't make it home ...