Brighton Marathon, Sunday 18th April – Rob Lines

I’d been excited about this marathon every since I heard about it last summer. Three years in the making this inaugural didn’t disappoint. Having gone to Uni in Brighton I have more than a bit of affinity and familiarity with the town (or City as it is now). I still have college friends there so had cheap accommodation and the opportunity to play catch up. But the things that really impressed me were the accommodation of London Marathon runners in the entry process where if they got lucky on the ballot they’d get a refund, being the 2nd largest marathon in the UK outside London on it’s first attempt, a flat(ish) course designed to avoid the Brighton Hills, accommodating late entries from those unable to fly to Boston Marathon, signs on the M23 and A23 warning that Brighton would be closed on 18th April and then the number of spectators on the course was totally mind blowing. I’m really not surprised they sold out. The event organizers got everything right. They were then blessed with glorious weather touching 20C. When I entered I think I put down a conservative training run estimate of 4:20. That put me in a seeded pen with others with 4:15 to 4:30 estimates. The course started with a loop of Preston Park which meant that before I got to the start line I saw the race leaders, the lead club runners, club mates, 3hr pace,3:30pacer and 4:00 pacer all run past before I even got started. Ran with the crowd to start with then stepped up the pace. I really wanted to go sub 4 hours on my chip time. At 20 miles it looked like I’d go sub 4hours on gun time too and the overtaking the 4:00 pacer and the group running with him at 22 miles was really really satisfying. Finished with a gun time of 3:56 and a chip time of 3:44 and credited with a half way time of 2:07 which gives the impression of a massive negative split, but that was also a gun time, chip time was 1:55 so second half would have been 1:49. I looked at the results to see where the first 4:15 runner came in. They were 3,100th. I was 1,499th which means I overtook 1600 runners. That’s one every 4 seconds. As none of them have eyes in the backs of their heads I had a bit of swerving, decelerating and accelerating to do. Makes for a really good long training run and excellent preparation for Comrades. Would I ever do London again? Only if I got automatic qualification. Certainly won’t ever apply to London again, it’s Brighton for me for now on.