Brighton, again

DSCN2479-james-and-w_crop 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.

DSCN2477-dino-box 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:

marathons

Weeelll... yes. More work required!

DSCN2478-alice-dreams 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.

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Nice work, very impressive. My marathon days are long past, but I'd have been happy with a 3:54 the day I ran ...

By climatehawk1 (not verified) on 16 Apr 2012 #permalink

u might be quicker if you didn't take photos along the way. I know that slows me down a lot... :-) ;-)

...or you could run half-marathons?

They would probably better for health... have mercy on your joints...

At the risk of being Captain Obvious - yes long (~30k) runs with some marathon pace km near the end.

[Yeah, this is now so obvious that even I have realised it :-) -W]

You could try increasing your carbo loading but you'd have to be lucky for this to help.

Have you tried salt tablets every hour to reduce stomach discomfort.

[No, that is a new thought. I'll consider it -W]

Hmmm...I won't go into detail about what energy gels did to my stomach during last year's Langdale horseshoe. Suffice to say it's jelly b's and snickers for me these days.

But salt tablets...how do they work then?

More precisely I use Succeed Caps - 1 every hour in marathons and longer events. I haven't done any controlled/blind experiments but with this I have had no stomach issues - where previously I had minor problems in events longer than a marathon.

I've no idea why they might assist but I've heard quite a few other people say they assist, so maybe it isn't a placebo effect. The electrolyte intake is presumably a win anyway.

You can try sports drink alone - almost everyone takes gus/gels but I'm not sure there is any advantage over sports drink (assuming aid stations provide it).