The Brighton Half Marathon
February 27th, 2009
Last Sunday Christian, Annie and I ran the Sussex Beacon Half Marathon. I must admit, waking up at 6am is usually unheard of for me, but the mix of nerves and excitement made the early morning wake up call somehow easier to bear. Probably not so easy for Katie, or indeed my parents who had driven 200 miles south the previous day to come and watch me do my first ever race. Still, get up we all did and headed into Brighton.
Christian is a bit of a veteran runner, having done the London Marathon in the past, and several other half distances, so inevitably he ran it in 1h 36m, and left Annie and I far behind. In the months running up to the race, me and Annie had completed several big Saturday morning runs, including the full distance a few weeks earlier in 2h 22m. So I was determined to knock a good 20 minutes off this and aim to run it in under two hours.
It was sunny, but still cold when we set off at 9:45am - I felt great! As soon as I started running all the tension and early morning faded away. It’s an awesome experience running along the sea-front, hearing the thunder of a thousand pairs of feet and the cheers of hundreds more people lining the streets.
But that’s nothing compared with the rush you get crossing that finish line. My final chip time was 1:58:35 with Annie coming in just behind me at 2:05:42.
I defiantly think I’m hoked! Really looking forward to the next one, whenever that may be.
