Do the race with a sniffle, but take plenty of hankerchiefs
Leave your waist bag with your food, s-caps and phone (with the route on) by the door of your house
Choose a day when there is hardly any wind and it isn't too warm
Choose a marathon with a route which is fairly flat
Result: 4hr 28min 1sec which is the fastest I have done since Windermere 2015 seventeen months ago. 212th out of 337 finishers.
I had very low expectations from this event mainly because of my sniffle and forgetting my food and s-caps. I was sure the sniffle would affect my energy and I was thinking I would be lucky to break 5 hours. I was reasonably confident of making the cut off of 5hr 30min. The other aspect I was concerned about was the organisation.
This half marathon or so event had been running for almost 100 years and was claimed to be England's oldest race. I did it my first year of regular race running in 2004. The route took us for about half a mile down a coned lane of the A1. It turned out that was the last year it ran as the Police understandably said that couldn't happen any more and there was no agreement on a new route.
Today's event was organised by a company and their reputation took a nose dive when they moved the event from July to October. By that time some people had booked hotels and flights apparently.
Besides a marathon, they were also putting on a half marathon, a relay, cycle races and a children's race the day before, so there was a fear that they had taken on too much. Also there were a few early indications that it wouldn't go smoothly - you had to pick up your race 'pack' from Newcastle. The pack consisted of an envelope with your race number and throwaway chip. Also the buses to get you to the start (not actually in Morpeth but about two miles south in the middle of nowhere) did not leave from near the finish, but about two miles away so I had to decide whether to park near the buses and have a long walk afterwards or near the finish and have a long walk before the start - I oped for the latter.
However, having said that the organisation on the day was very good. The route was very well signed, they had professional event management staff with lollipop signs on even the quietest junctions - some of them had so little to do they appeared bored out of their minds, others were like very enthusiastic coaches. The aid stations, every 5K, had water and High-5 as advertised. Having forgotten my s-caps and food I knew I was going to be having High-5 at every aid station.
There were quite a few encouraging spectators about in the built up areas offering chocolates, jelly babies and orange segments. The chocolates and orange were lovely, but being a vegetarian I had to give the jelly babies a miss. One guy who was outside his house offered to go inside and get me a drink - I must have looked very bad at that point ...
The organisers claimed there were 1000 runners in the marathon, but it looked more like 300 or so to me, but it looked geared up for 1000. I started gently thinking this was the only way I was going to have any energy for the second half. I passed Tony from the ultra runner store in the first mile - he was spectating, no way would I have passed him running !
The first 5m were on closed A-roads and they were a little dull to be honest. Mainly flat, but not much to look at.
I noticed at about 2m I was starting to get quite warm and I thought this was a very bad sign as it was probably from my cold. It felt like the wheels were coming off earlier than expected. But it didn't get any worse, I did get one or two niggles after that, but nothing which lasted.
We finally made it to the outskirts of Blyth and went down the road to Seaton Sluice, where we turned closer to the coast and had a short off-road section (bliss). We were soon back on tarmac and past the end of the North Tyneside 10k race and we followed that route through Whitley Bay (halfway), Cullercoats and Tynemouth. It was pretty busy with people walking on what was now a lovely day in this section but there was quite a bit of encouragement as well. I was aware that I was running along at better than 10 min/mile pace using the distance markers and my time but it suddenly changed and I was two or three minutes behind. Not sure why, but I will have to look at my splits. I was still thinking there was no way I would keep this up and I reckoned the 20m point would be the psychological point when everything would fall apart. I was regularly passing people and I think after about 4m only three people passed me and two of them I was just behind at the finish.
I talked to a few other runners and there did seem to be a number doing the event as their first marathon. It was a good one for that, fairly flat. The one exception was just before the Fish Quay in South Shields where we turned up a steep hill. It didn't last too long, but there was no way I was running it.
I was hoping to see more of the river after this, but we didn't see much. There was quite bit of pavements next to busy road, then onto a cycle track next to warehouses. The distance markers for 20m, 21m and 22m weren't there which was a relief, I got through the 20m psychological barrier without realising and I still had something in my legs. At this point I could see a chance that I would finish under 4hr 30min so I decided to try and hang on. Luckily a couple of other runners were just ahead of me and they were going at the pace I needed, so I tried to hang on to them. It worked, I was just able to keep in contact with them and came into the finish, with lots of very enthusiastic spectators, just behind them.
Would I do it again ? Probably not, the scenery wasn't great and I prefer to have some hills and be in the country. Still I am glad to have done it and pleased with my time.
There was a cotton tee shirt and a medal at the finish.
A good effort all round. Not quite Hardmoors tho'.
ReplyDeleteNo, it certainly wasn't !
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