It was a beautiful sunny day with negligible wind. Perfect marathon weather. The lovely Mrs S took me to the start in Salisbury where I met Peat, Andy and Buster, all of us excited and just a little apprehensive - classic pre-marathon stuff.
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| Me and Peat, ready for the off |
Getting the pace right is so important, and it's quite tricky on an event like this where relay and marathon runners are starting together. I set off with 12-15 runners ahead of me. I tried a new policy of taking gels every 30 minutes, and kept a steady pace.
The first half went quickly. I came down the hill into Broughton after exactly 90 minutes, feeling good and buoyed by seeing Mum, Dad and Sue waving madly.
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| The approach to Broughton and the halfway point |
From then on I could feel my legs starting to hurt. I walked a bit up the very steep slope after Kings Somborne but kept a good pace up the long drag to Farley Mount. I overtook 3 or so marathon runners from about 18 miles on... they weren't looking too good. I kept taking the gels every 30 minutes, and I was feeling OK.
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| About 3 miles to go, at Farley Mount |
The last couple of km are quite deceptive. I kept thinking that I could see the final hill, but it wasn't, and then I recognised the hill, but there was less of it than I had remembered from previous encounters in quite groggy conditions.
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| About 200m to go |
I felt remarkably good at the final finish. I wasn't even inclined to have a little lie-down. Everything had come together very nicely. I was
third place overall which was very satisfactory, although I would have loved to have been the first rather than second >40. Next year...
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| With Mum and Dad at the finish |
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