Five harriers decided late Spring time to tackle the 3rd fastest city marathon (apparently) and today was our day to shine.
The trip started with a train to City Airport, went through the usual airport security checks and got to our gate only to be told the flight was cancelled after the scheduled departure time. Nightmare! We were then, after about an hour, offered an alternative flight the next day, brilliant….but from Heathrow! A £120 taxi thanks BA for picking up the tab, across town soon followed and a superb room at the Sofitel awaited. We met for a delicious buffet and got a few hours kip before 4.45am alarm calls. All picked up by BA!
So to the race this morning, conditions were perfect unless you were out there for more than 3 hours when the wind picked up and the rain came down.
Superb weekend away, with some very witty people but I thought the Expo was poorly organised and there were lots of twists and turns on the course with a few cobbled sections thrown in.
Results as follows:
Tom Woolley – 2.47.06 (PB)
Patrick Bareham – 2.51.00 (PB)
Mike King – 2.58.48 (PB)
Harriet Woolley – 3.00.24 (PB)
Nicola Morris – 3.30.39 (SB)
A couple of special mentions, Harriet was cruising around, running pretty much identical km’s the entire race only to be stopped in her tracks for exactly 24 seconds (according to Garmin moving time) for an ambulance to get through with Marshall’s blocking the route. Harriet would have have dipped under 3 hours, but it will come as she is in exceptional form.
Nicola had a great run, just missing out on going sub 3.30 still having an amazing race.
Patrick was adamant he could only run 2.55 at a push and destroyed it, running a negative split. That is special running.
I had no idea how my run was going to go having become a father just under ten weeks ago, full nights sleep have long gone. Went out to grab a sub 2.45 and claim a championship spot at London but the last seven km’s were tough and couldn’t quite keep the legs ticking over, got sucked along with a train in the middle of the race and realised they were probably a 2.40 train too late and that could have been the difference. Not disappointed though as left nothing out there.
The other mention goes to Mike and definitely saving the best until last, after killing himself trying to catch me at Hove last Sunday, he couldn’t run for most of the week leading up to Frankfurt with chronic pains around his chest and almost didn’t run and still claimed a PB and a sub 3! This is his second sub 3 marathon as well!
You may think everyone got PB’s or SB’s that it must have been an easy course. We set up a WhatsApp group from day one and met most Sunday’s for our long runs and kept each other motivated throughout. We all worked super hard and it’s great to see the camaraderie and obviously hard training pay dividends.
See you all soon
Tom