Great little pub run on Thursday down at Symondsbury. Thanks guys for sticking together. A few pics on this YouTube Video.
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Yeovil Marathon Race Report - Nick Sale
Very pleasantly surprised about what a good marathon experience this was. Some great features to the race. Recommend it.
Starts on the Athletics track, opposite the Fleet Air Arm Museum. So loads of parking really close. Plenty toilets. Tick! They use the grass in the middle of the track for bag store, to pump out some music, food, drink (bar) and ice creams. And we finish with a lap or 2 around that track. A free bouncy castle for kids. Also the Military Wives choir were singing to entertain us afterwards. A really nice relaxing end.
At 9am we lined up on the track. 2 friends from my work "runch club" joined me, Matt Baker and Mike Bosley. For Matt, it was his first marathon and a warm up for HamLyme 50k next month. They both had good runs. I also met Adrian Cornford at the start who had come out to provide much appreciated support. Thank you Adrian!
Helpfully we had been informed that some jelly beans, coke and bottled water was available at aid stations approx. 3 miles apart. It was going to be warm but this meant no need to carry water and more than a handful of energy stuffs. 2 x Shot bloks was my food of choice this time.
OK.. so I was feeling positive. I had a postit at work with my 12 week plan on it and, unusually, felt I could honestly tick it all off. So I decided on a pace that would bring me in with a PB of 2-4 mins. It was due to be toasty so I also had a little bag of zero tablets to drop into my water bottles and planned to just keep pouring lots of water on my head.. which worked a treat.
10 minutes before the start Matt Driver of YTRRC set off with a few support runners, to attempt a Guinness world record for dribbling a hockey ball around a marathon. I used to play hockey so quite intrigued. It was a narrow start line, maybe 6-7 people wide. And surprisingly the front row had a guy with a double buggy! Turns out he, Rob Forbes, was last years winner in 2'41. He was returning this year with another Guinness record in his sights, that of pushing a double buggy, with 2 toddlers in it, around! He had to beat 3'20 ish. Anyway he disappeared very quickly and achieved his goal, coming 2nd in 2'42! Unbelievable! Just 1 minute slower than without the buggy! Respect.
I got onto my target 6'30 / mile race pace, right from the start, resisting the urge to go faster early and bag time. It is a 2 lap course and The Heron Half Marathon started an hour after the marathon. So Lap 2 for us meant the company of lots more runners which really helped.
The route is basically lots of quiet lanes. I would describe it as "gently undulating" rather than flat. I like the variation and it was not significant enough to really slow you.
At half way I was joint 5th / 6th. Adrian was popping up around the route, driving and running and giving great encouragement. He was also joined by Rich Clifton on his bike.
These guys were a big help to me.I was now 5th on my own, was overtaking a lot of half marathon runners and assumed that the 4 runners ahead of me were well gone.
I worked quite hard to try and stay on the pace and to stay hydrated and keep my temperature down, which went well.. but I was putting in slightly slower miles between 18 and 22. Then at about 22 ish miles Richard was alongside with news that 4th place chap was now in sight. I wouldn't have known amongst the half runners. That gave me a great short term goal, and I managed to recover my pace, catch up, and pass him as decisively as poss.. lol
It wasn't until about the 25 mile mark, as we returned to the Yeovilton road, that the 3rd place chap came into sight. Adrian and Rich made sure I knew and gave me some cracking last words of encouragement. Perhaps 100 meters down at this stage. By the time we reached the track, with the finish in sight, I was about 50 meters down. I assumed we had 1 full lap of the track plus approximately 100'ms to go. I chased as hard as I could but felt that I wasn't closing fast enough.
Anyway a strange thing happened. With what looked like 100ms to go the 3rd chap was told by a marshal to turn around and run back the opposite way, but he didn't want to. To get the distance right we needed to do 1 & 3/4 laps so were turned on our heels and had 200 meters more than we expected. The guy was confused and just stopped. Felt like about 5 seconds later I was with him. I very briefly stopped too and urged him to run with me, which he did, but I was on a PB, and wanted to run faster than he did! lol. So I got 3rd. I did feel a bit bad. Had a good chat with the guy. Hopefully next year they will tell runners at the start what happens at the end, as it was a wee bit misleading.
Anyway, with much thanks to great support, Adrian and Rich and lots of other support too along the way at aid stations etc.. I managed to keep to my pace and picked up a new PB of 2'51'32.
Really chuffed and getting a bit more of a taste for road marathons again, though trails are much more fun :-)
The winner was Adam Holland, of Tavistock, in 2'32. A really interesting chap with all sorts of records, like the fastest average time for 10 marathons in 10 days! 2'51 was his average :-) Gosh