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| Team Crayon ready and standing by! |
Brighton, Sussex. Sunday, 9th April 2017
Expo
I went down on the Friday before race day to pick up my race number from
the Brighton marathon ‘expo’. Much like London, the marathon organisers did not post anything out but insisted you turn up person. This year they had decided not use the BIC centre but instead put
it in the ‘race village’ which was on the beach just past the pier. Luckily it
was a nice afternoon, and the queue was short. I knew to avoid the Saturday as it was so busy in previous years. I collected four numbers in
total, having offered for a few other folks to save them the hassle of the trip down. I signed up for the 2018 race (it’s £20
cheaper if you enter at the expo). I can
imagine packet pickup would have been a bit grim had the weather been nasty like last year.
There were a few stands open selling burgers, coffee, beer and the like but I
passed on that and had a nice walk down the sea front in search of fish and
chips.
I had agreed to run the race this year with Rachael and
Alec. I had run Punchbowl with Alec back in February, and East Hanningfield
with Rachael in January. We had decided
that, for a laugh, we’d go in fancy dress and the theme had been picked of
Crayola Crayons. Seemed like a good idea at the time anyway!
Yawn
The alarm (both of them!) were set for a 4.45am wakeup, although
I was wide awake well before then. I downed my usual breakfast of toast and
granola before getting in the car for the long and boring drive down to Brighton.
There was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun rose to a glorious morning. It
wasn’t even chilly –my car told me it was a mild 9C which isn’t bad for early
April. I had pre-booked the marathon park & ride at
the Amex Stadium, which is just outside of Brighton off the A27. I had timed to get there at 7am, I hadn’t
counted on the first queue of the day. There was a mile long tailback and along
the slip road, to get to the stadium. This
day was all about queues, but then we are British!
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| Shadow of the queue |
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| Theresa and Emine |
Who should I bump into but my friend Emine,
who I had run Punchbowl and East Hanngfield with. She was with Theresa and
Gemma, and it was great to have a chat with the lovely ladies and catch-up on
all things running related.
Preston Park
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| Sardines ready to be canned |
The bus dropped us on in Preston Park, and I caught my first
sight of just how many people they had entered this year for the race. The
place was absolutely packed like sardines!
I had arranged to give a 100 marathon runner his number at the start, we
had arranged to meet at “the monument by the entrance”. Little did I know there
were multiple monuments by multiple entrances.
After some minutes on the phone, we eventually found each other and the
number was handed over. By this time it was ticking up towards 8.45 and there
were shouts over the P.A. that the bag drop was going to close in 15 minutes. I
made my way over to the bag drop, slight panic set in when I realised it was
complete chaos.
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| Which way now? |
The bag drop was a small fenced off area within the park but organised
by start coral colours, these had multiple stations but only some manned. There
were monster queues and people trying to find the exit or move to the correct
queue, you just couldn’t move. Luckily they opened up another station and I
legged it over to drop my kit bag. I kept behind my camelbak and Crayon costume.
I made my way over to the start corals. Not before I bumped into my friend Emma, queen
of selfies. She was waiting patiently in the monster loo queue from hell. We
had a quick chat and of course, took a selfie! |
| Pink start coral, warming up |
By now it was beginning to heat up. It was a glorious
morning, perfect weather to head to the beach and have an ice cream and maybe a
nice cold beer, not sure about running a marathon though! Haha! I had left it
to the last minute to put on my crazy crayon costume but could put it off no
longer. Although with my camelbak, I seemed to resemble the hunchback of Notre Dame. I got chatting to some fellow runners including one chap who was dressed
in a spider man costume. His arms and
face almost completely covered, he was going to really suffer I think.
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| Jane Vickers from BBC Radio Sussex |
In the pink
The set the runners off in waves, with the faster runners
going first. We were in the "pink" wave which was 4:30-5:00 although I suspected we had no chance of getting that time, given the costume and the predicted heat. There was quite a gap between waves, so although the start time
was 9:15, it wasn’t until 10 o’clock that we’d made our way to the start line
and was ready to go. The situation was much improved from last year though,
they had some portaloos and urinals. Previous years had involved emergency “watering
of the bushes” (men and women!), with mars
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| Waiting for the pink start |
Finally we crossed the timing mat at the start, and we were
off! The first mile was just so busy, you do a loop around the park itself and
have to go uphill. We had decided that we were going to speed-walk most of the
hills, so it felt odd to be walking in just that first mile. We went past the start again, this time in the
road and then things flattened out and we could get up to our normal running
speed. Although it was warm there was quite a bit of shade to run it, which
kept things tolerable.
First Half
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| Sweltering going past the Royal Pavillion |
The first 6 miles or so involved running around the city,
with an out-and-back past the Royal Pavilion and then round the Laines which
was really nice. The only downside was this involved more hills than I
remembered! There was some great crowd support and loads of people shouting “come
on crayons”. We took every opportunity to high-five the children as well as
taking on board some jelly babies.
We then came out onto the main coastal road and there
started the first out-and-back slog of the day, out past the Marina, Rottingdean
and towards the village of Ovingdean and back. There was a nice breeze running
towards the Marina, and it was getting even hotter now but still tolerable. I
remembered from previous years that “out” part of this section had an incline so
we walked that and made sure we didn’t go too fast. We were up to about 8 miles
now, almost a third of the way round but we knew much worse awaited us further
on.
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| Running through the Laines |
We hit the turnaround point in Ovingdean and started the
gentle descent back into Brighton towards the pier. At the 11 mile point was
our first real surprise of the day, the water station had run out of cups. In
previous years they had given out small 330ml bottles of water or disposal water
pouches, this year (as last) was a real disappointment as paper cups were handed out, filled about 1/3 with water. This meant you had to grab 2 or 3 to get a decent
drink, and the volunteers couldn’t pour it fast enough to keep up with demand.
Anyway we were invited to help ourselves to the big 2 litre bottles of water due to
no cups – this was worrying as I knew there were loads of people behind us,
including the later green start who must have started 15 mins later than our start.
Was giving us a whole 2 litre bottle going to deprive them of water? I also
heard some of the runners abusing the marshals due to the lack of cups. I felt
very sorry for the volunteers, having been a marshal twice myself at Brighton I
know these folks give up their day and no-one deserves to be on the receiving
end of that. Those runners were lucky not to be disqualified, really. |
| "Gnome" shadows! |
So after filling ourselves with water and tipping the rest
over our heads, as well as some impromptu childish water fights (why not!) we
kept going on the slog back past the pier and through central Brighton. By now the first finishers were coming in towards us on the other side of the
road, and they looked absolutely knackered and done in. We crossed the half way point in about 2
hours and 48 minutes, which we were quite pleased with. It was now getting
roasting hot and not breeze at all to keep us cool, so the hat finally had to go. I had it on a bit of elastic so I
could sneak it back on for the photographers! This was despite Rachael
complaining I was “out of uniform” and telling me to get the hat back on under pain of further water fights. Seems
I never fellow orders.
The hell of Hove
We kept going past the derelict West Pier and then a sudden
right turn into Hove. Running through central Brighton was brilliant, the
crowds kept us going with cheers of “come on Crayons!” and lots more high
fiving of both adults and children. There was a dancing troupe at the mile 14
point, not sure what that was all about.
Now started the part of the route which I dreaded the most –
the out-and-back part in Hove, through Aldrington and onto Portslade. It’s dead
straight and goes on for miles, all the time people coming the other way (in
front of you) which is mentally tough, as you can literally see what awaits
you. The ‘received wisdom’ is that the
last 6 miles of a marathon are the toughest, but I always find the 15-22 mile
section the worst. You have run a long way, you are tired and want to stop, but you still have a significant distance
left. Once you get up to 22-23 miles you can just cling on for dear life and
pray for the finish to arrive.
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| Fags & Booze mid-race? |
2 mins of fame
At mile 16 we bumped into the lady again from BBC Radio
Sussex (she introduced herself as Jane Vickers), there were no excuses from us
this time. She trotted next to us and interviewed us (recording it on her
iPhone), she asked us why on earth we were dressed in costumes. You can listen
to this below. Later on a lady in the crowd told me that she had heard the
interview on the radio, so I’d have my 2 minutes of (local) fame! We kept going,
before doing a small loop in Portslade and heading back towards central
Brighton and then the final out-and-back section.
Welcome to hell - Shoreham Power Station
We were heading now towards the dreaded Shoreham power station
section, which most people say is the worst part of the route. At mile 18 we made
a pit-stop to use the portaloos. We had been running next to a lady who was
running her first marathon. She was really suffering with the heat and the
distance and she was most distraught and upset. She was saying out loud she couldn’t
finish. Alec left us and ran with her all the way to the finish to get her home. What a star. We decided to go on ahead as a small crowd of crayons
isn’t what you need when you are struggling!
As we entered the power station we came across a sight that no runner ever wants to see – an abandoned water station with no water, no cups and no marshals. There were gasps of disbelief from the runners, by now all of us were so dehydrated. I did have my camelbak which helped but I still had to take water on at every stop. Further on, the same again except a marshal was holding up a sign saying saying “no water”. Luckily for us, some of the businesses around the power station bought out hose pipes for some impromptu unofficial water stations, also people were frantically scrabbling around looking for discarded 2 litre bottles or cups with anything left in them at all. I thought this was totally unacceptable to run out of water and really dangerous, the organisers need to sort this for next year.
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| You're having a laugh, right? |
A high point was I bumped into Emma and Emine again, and then later on also Claire who I'd run a bit of Larmer Tree with. Lots of sweaty hugs and moaning about water stations ensued, before getting on our way again.
By now Rachael and myself were run-walking and we just slogged those power station miles out. The stench of rotting fish, blazing heat and lack of any shade, breeze and unavailability of water made it a very gruelling experience. Luckily at the 23 mile point they did have some water, this time no cups so folks were just sharing the big old 2 litre bottles and the marshals also invited us to "cup our hands together" to drink out of. Resourceful, but they shouldn't be put in that position.
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| Catching up with Claire |
By now Rachael and myself were run-walking and we just slogged those power station miles out. The stench of rotting fish, blazing heat and lack of any shade, breeze and unavailability of water made it a very gruelling experience. Luckily at the 23 mile point they did have some water, this time no cups so folks were just sharing the big old 2 litre bottles and the marshals also invited us to "cup our hands together" to drink out of. Resourceful, but they shouldn't be put in that position.
Madeira Drive
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| Glory, more like blessed relief! |
At mile 23 we finally exited the Shoreham power station loop, went up a
small incline and then we were on the prom, heading back towards the pier and
the finish line. I looked at my watch and we worked out we had 45 minutes to do
3 and a bit miles, to achieve under 6 hours finish time. We decided to dig in and go for it, we managed to bash out 3
miles at around 12 min/miles which were definitely the fastest miles in that second half.
By now we were overtaking like crazy (and had been since 13 miles really), it was great to get so many cheers as some of the only people still running. I did really feel for those walking, and I've never seen so many people laid out with heat exhaustion being attended to by St. John's ambulance. If you've trained all winter for this one race in the cold, to have such unusually hot conditions for time of year on your race is such bad luck.
By now we were overtaking like crazy (and had been since 13 miles really), it was great to get so many cheers as some of the only people still running. I did really feel for those walking, and I've never seen so many people laid out with heat exhaustion being attended to by St. John's ambulance. If you've trained all winter for this one race in the cold, to have such unusually hot conditions for time of year on your race is such bad luck.
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| Heading along the prom |
Rachael somehow persuaded me to up the pace for that last mile despite some serious whinging and moaning from me (business as usual!). We came past the i360, the famous derelict West Pier, and finally back off the prom onto the
road and headed past the Palace Pier. It was confusing running on the prom for
the few miles, there were lots of pedestrians milling about and generally
getting in the way – not their fault of course, there was just a total lack of
marshals and no-one telling you to go from the prom to road. Confusing!
Finishing
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| Looking back at the finish line |
As we went past the Palace Pier we knew we were still not
quite there yet, we just dug it and kept going to that finish line to roars
from the crowd. Funny how the last 400 yards seems like the longest run ever! The
PA announcer said “here comes the crayons, that is the best costume I’ve seen
so far!”. We crossed the finish line arms in the air, my watch said we had
finished in a gruelling 5 hours and 54 minutes. Certainly my slowest ever Brighton but we’d had
such a laugh!
We were handed a plastic bottle of water and offered either
an XS or XL t-shirt (other sizes ran out). They had also run out of other goodies which was a shame. We waited for a bit and Alec came over the
line with the lady he had helped, she was very emotional and so pleased to
finish. This is one of the great things about running – we all help each other
out. Well done Alec, you are a real gentleman.
I had planned to go for a post-race dip in the sea, get an ice-cream and something to eat and just generally cool down, but by now it was
nearly 4.30pm and I knew the last bus back to the stadium left at 5. So I reluctantly hobbled over and joined the long queue for the bus.
Brighton was done and dusted for another year. This year I was so very disappointed organisational cock-ups – the lack of water being the main one and unforgivable on such a hot day.
Brighton was done and dusted for another year. This year I was so very disappointed organisational cock-ups – the lack of water being the main one and unforgivable on such a hot day.
Although I’ve signed up for 2018 already, I suspect next
year will be my last time at Brighton. It
has just got too expensive, too crowded, and every year there are too many
cock-ups made with the organisation for my liking. Such a shame as the run itself is such good fun, there is so much potential for this to be one of the best marathons in the UK.
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