Brighton, again

The follow-up to Amsterdam and Brighton part 1. Again, if you lack interest in running, the answer is 3:54.28.

The photo is me and James Edgoose after the finish. By this point we've gone through the phases of collapsed in a heap for a bit, drunk some water, eaten a banana, just about got up, walked a bit, sat down again, got up and are capable of smiling... well you get the idea. And I can only speak for my own collapse, James finished 15+ mins ahead of me so may have been all sparkly at the finish for all I know.

This year was much better than Brighton last year, but only a bit (3 mins) better than Amsterdam. I'm a bit disappointed by that, but not much; over the last couple of months there has been too much rowing and stuff for me to really concentrate on the running properly. More long runs are required. I came 2068th, of about 8900 finishers, which is well in the top 25%. James, at 3:37 was 1205th.

I'll put up the graph of the GPS track at some point, but broadly... the first 21k followed the 5:15 (=1:50) plan from Amsterdam, then the rest tapers, a bit more gradually, and didn't fall quite so far down around 35k. So the plan for sub-3:45 has to be holding 5:15 up to 30k, perhaps, and then stopping the fall-off from going to 6:15. At least that's what I hope for. James E ran a far more steady race than me, and came past me at about 22k; the 3:45 pacers came past at about 25k,and while I kept them in sight for a while I lost them at maybe 28k and certainly didn't have the heart to try to keep up. From 21k to mid-30's I had a pain in my lower left calf that was worryingly-possibly like the beginnings of a strain, so formed an excuse to not push which I gladly seized on. I used up 5 energy gels during the race, and drank some-of 3 energy-drink bottles that they had at the stops. My stomach got a bit queasy at one point - settled by sipping some gel.

Brighton is a funny old town: fairly downmarket though I'd say. Last year Mike (doing his one-marathon-before-I-die) stayed in a decent-ish hotel, but near the seafront, and commented next day that it was quite noisy at night, due to drunken stag-party types along the front. This year I stayed in a low dive hostel (St Christopher's) just near the pier - oh, how convenient I thought - and I too was disturbed by traffic noise in the small hours. Until about 3 am that is, when I was woken up by the stag party people who were sharing my dormitory room, just returning from a night at a strip club looking at "cludge", oh what joy. Next year I'm going to stay inland a bit.

Here (update) is the promised graph:

Weeelll... yes. More work required!

Other stuff.

* This year, the water at the stops was in little plastic bags that you just had to squeeze, and in small quantity. This was much better than the usual water bottles, or plastic cups.
* The goody bags were rubbish.
* There still weren't nearly enough loos.
* They completely stuffed up labelling the start areas, but I got a good start anyway.
* Other pix I took, on Flickr.
* The winners, taken by someone else.