After Bramley the week before, the conversation turned towards Bryony's Half Marathon in Brighton, which I didn't actually have an entry for. Turns out that the friend Bryony was due to run with, was unable to compete, so I jumped at the chance to take up the role as "personal pacemaker". This looked like it would be a good chance to run a nice, easy, sub 1hr 50 min Half Marathon, before Paris Half two weeks later.
We arrived on the Saturday, to howling winds, driving rain and abandoned a walk along the seafront, as walking at 45 degrees was harder than it needed to be. Some doubts crept in about how pleasant it might be to actually run in this weather, but thankfully after a good nights sleep and some dodgy hotel porridge for breakfast, we walked out to blue skies and a little bit of sun. It was still pretty "baltic", but we set off at a good pace to warm ourselves up and I got my first chance to showcase my new Pink Place running vest......
The sun was out and the pace was good, ticking off the miles early on. Some confusion set in when the mile markers, as between miles 4 and 5 our watches were about 0.5 miles ahead of the mile markers. It continued like this and became quite frustrating, but we hoped that there would be a nice short mile at the end at least? The course was relatively fast/flat and was pretty amazing to see the first runners whizzing past you, going the other way, as they had already been through the turn point.
Miles 7-9 were pretty uneventful as you made your way to the final turn point and the route home along the seafront promenade. Coloured huts and mile markers whizzed by and we were driven on by the amazing support on the course. When mile 12 passed by and we had 12.5 miles on our watch, we were a little concerned as Brighton Pier still seemed a long way away. Our watches beeped at 13.1 miles and the Half Marathon "should" have been over, but sadly it was not.....what on earth was going on? Mile 13 came by and we could finally see the finish line, crosseing over in 1hr 46 mins, slightly confused by the fact that we had actually run almost 13.5 miles on our watch?
I think the mixture of pain and confusion is clearly evident in the photos below (even the 1hr 45 min pacemaker is puzzled):
After receiving our medals and trying to work out what might have happened, we heard a few people query the distance, but didn't really know what more we could do? I was wanting to take the 1hr 43 mins that my watch said I did for the Half Marathon distance, but knew the chip time would be 1hr 46 mins? It turns out, that after a proper "steward's enquiry", we were right and the course organisers published the following statement:
"Race Organisers of the Brighton Half Marathon have acknowledged today (Monday 20th February) that due to human error the course was extended to a total distance of 13.42 miles."
Thankfully this meant that they adjusted all the times and I can now confirm that we are both the VERY proud owners of a 1hr 43 mins PB time for a Half Marathon.
Next stop, Paris Half Marathon..........................
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