Brighton Marathon 2014

So here it is. My post about the Brighton Marathon. A little later than I'd hoped but I experienced something after the race which prevented me from getting my thoughts on the whole thing out. I will try and put that into words later... I get mindful of rambling too much...

A couple of my friends from work were going to be at the race (one - Colin - as a pacer, the other - Tom - looking after lots of pacers and the athlete who would go on to finish second). I had to tell them that I was taking part in the race as there was no doubt I'd see them there.

I spent the Friday before the big day at work, completely unable to concentrate on anything. The feeling was very similar to how you feel pretty much all the live-long day on Christmas Eve when you're a kid, an excited and more than a little bit desperate churning inside. You know something big is coming, you can't wait to tear off the wrapping paper but you don't know if it's going to be the He-Man Snake Mountain with voice changing wolf head and working trap door that you wanted or just a poo in a box.

Best. Present. Ever

We set off early Saturday afternoon, arrived in a chilly and slightly blustery Brighton around 2pm and pegged it straight to the expo to collect our race numbers. There weren't really any bargains to be had at the expo but I did treat myself to a pair of hot pink calf guards.

Brighton is somewhere we really enjoy spending time. Mostly going to pubs, dribbling over the guitars in GAK, going to more pubs and spending far too much money in Dave's comics so it was very strange to be there and not have those things to do. We sat quietly in a cake shop scoffing carb loading with lemon sponge and milkshakes and watched it absolutely bucket down outside.

We both managed a pretty good night's sleep and woke on time to a very grey and overcast but thankfully dry sky. After a pre-race brekkie of peanut butter and honey bagels, his accompanied by a banana and mine by a nice healthy Mars Bar (I'm allergic to bananas, you know), it was race gear on and out the door. We followed the snake of people wearing running kit up to Preston Park, dropped our bag off at a truck, donned our bin bags and joined the queue for the loos. Someone had left an orange in the one I used. I did not take it with me.

Not entirely sure where time had gone, we had no time to take in the atmosphere (or get nervous) as it was coming up to 9:15am - showtime! As we walked up to the red start pen the gun went off and BAM we were running a marathon. Just like that. Blokey didn't even have time to get his Garmin going... We ran across the line past Paula Radcliffe (amazing hair) and within the first 150 meters or so found ourselves at a bottle neck, which forced everyone to stop and walk. This happened a couple of times but cleared up super quickly and we were on our way.

The route took us round some pleasant residential areas with some nice looking shops I'd never seen before (including a clothes shop selling 'road kill couture') with a couple of gentle inclines before guiding us towards town. The streets were lined with people and as we ran past the Pavillion I heard our names being hollered from a traffic island full. Tom from work was waving and shouting very energetically which gave us a lovely boost. He also very kindly took some pictures (blokey is the chap wearing yellow and a beard).

I can't remember an awful lot about the first 8 miles or so but as we ran up the seafront towards Ovingdean the elite men's field were already coming back towards us. I spotted Colin doing his thing, waved like a loon and he nodded and gave me a solemn fist pump. Past the marina, up a fairly long incline, past a boarding school that like more like a lair for spies and up to Ovingdean. Conversation between us died down so, to lift the mood, I recounted the thrilling tale of how someone had left an orange in the portaloo. He said I should have eaten it. I said I could have eaten it because the skin would have protected the fruit from the toilet germs. A man turned round and I thought he was going to tell us to be quiet but instead he explained how he ran his marathon PB after eating a banana he'd found on the floor in the race village...

We'd loosely planned to go through the halfway point in 1:55 and I decided to keep quiet that we were actually two minutes ahead of schedule. We were both doing really well and I decided not to ruin the atmosphere with facts. Instead we ear-wigged a conversation between three guys, one of whom was advising his friend to remember that either "Charlie might have sh*t the bed" OR "Charlie might be sh*t in bed". Either way I wasn't sure what comfort this guy's friend was supposed to be taking from this. Back towards the crowds and I felt very sorry for the owner of the dog that was nomming on a discarded packet of orange flavoured energy gel.

We ran some more, people cheered a lot and we were suprisingly on course for what my running maths were telling me could be a 3hr 45min finish. Through Hove, past a band of children (whose singer would no doubt soon find himself victim to puberty) playing 'Word Up' and that was when it hit me: we only have single figures left to go.

I had heard that the road leading up to the power station was pretty bleak but had no idea until we were running up it that it had been dubbed the Road to Hell. We ran towards a group playing some awesome tribal sounding drums but, as we went past, they went quiet and, in a strange turn of events, all us runners began shouting "keep going!!" to the drummers. As we ran around what I think was some kind of industrial estate blokey began to flag. I tried to cheer him up to keep him going but he doesn't really respond well to that kind of thing.

At around 22 miles the route starts to head back to the sea front and he took a short walk break but managed to start up again.Then he stopped again and told me to carry on without him. I made the mistake of telling him to dig deep, there was little more than 5k to go and it would all be over, he'd never have to run again if he didn't want to. He told me he'd been digging as deep as he could since half way and had nothing left. I managed to get him going once more but then he stopped a third time and I knew that was it, I was going to finish this thing by myself.

I was terrified.

Off I went; I couldn't look back because I knew that if I did that I would stop for good too and he would be really upset with me. I got back on pace (we'd been averaging 8.27 minute miles for almost the entire way), shut my emotions off and let my legs get on with it. 23 miles, 24, 25... Someone had told me that the pier was the finish line and as I rounded the corner at the 26 mile marker I was literally distraught that the finish was nowhere in sight. For some reason this infuriated me and out of nowhere my legs just took off, desperate to finish. I'd later learn that I ran my final mile at 7:31 pace. I've never done the 'picking people off' at the end of a race before but everyone in front of me I just wanted to take down.

 

I saw Tom waiting at the finish gantry and ran towards him, stopping my Garmin at 3:51:12. He surprised me by yelling "keep going you haven't crossed the finish line!" but by then I had lost 14 seconds, crossing the chip mat in 3:50:26.

Someone put a medal over my head, Tom put his arms around me said "you did it - you ran a marathon!" but all I could think about was blokey and worry about where he was and how I would find him. Two minutes later he ran across the finish and someone put a medal over his head. He promptly took it off. We were given some breakfast biscuits, said goodbye to Tom and made our way to the Beach Village to get a beer. I had to dunk my breakfast biscuits in my beer just to be able to chew them. Classy.

 

After at least three beers (each) and many, many tears (just mine) we walked up to cheer the last few runners home. We yelled for them, we clapped and shouted their names, told them they were nearly there (they really were) and then headed back to our hotel, packed up and went home and just like that, it was all over.

To be continued...