Portsmouth Coastal Marathon 2012

NicelronDad-  It's Christmas so i'm sure no one will mind. Go for it.

Hey Waccy, I was being entirely selfish, and had not even considered the chance others may object! Next you'll be suggesting I tone down the en route Christmas Carol renditions

(....just getting in to the spirit, and really quite looking forward to this one!)

Anyone have an idea what conditions are like on the ground? I noticed a news story on the bbc about a village - Wallington - on the otherside of portsmouth harbour that has been evacuated because of potential flooding! The forecast isn't looking great either.

I bought a pair of sealskinz waterproof socks (£20!!!) yesterday as I was freaking out how wet it's going to be. I don't fancy the idea of 26 miles with wet feet - hope they work. Anyway whatever it's like I'm just going to do my best to grit my teeth, have fun, and not worry if I don't make my 3h20m pb target time on this one.

Sounds like I'll be running next to you ro616 (3:23, but anything under 3:30 is happy). I hear the ground is wet with large puddles but only muddy in sections. It's not going to flood because it's next to the sea! Unless you run really slowly and the tide has come in.

Body Glide FTW.

Sorry NiceIronDad i just assumed you'd meant the other runners. 

 I would never try to stop a fellow runner from singing when they run. In fact i am highly in favour of it.   

Just seen the forecast.

Lashing down with high winds.

Can't wait

Use accuweather: http://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/portsmouth/po1-1/weekend-weather/330359 That says "a couple of showers". I'm definitely going with that one 8-13° too, so around 9° at the start which is warmer than last weekend down here. It even has a picture with the sun on.

All the best 2wheels. Make sure you stick to the route near the dual carriageway. Mental fitness needed for the run over the sand/shoreline.

After the mother of all weeks on the Christmas ale, I'm seriously looking forward to this for a detox!  As far as I'm concerned, the wetter the better for detox purposes!

Good luck all - its a great day to be doing a marathon leading up to the 25th

Aggghh. Works Christmas party last night and i am hanging...

Perfect mara prep lol

Just went for a 2m run in similar conditions to tomorrow (same wind, rain and temp) in a Gore vest and shorts and gloves and was plenty warm enough. Will take a light windproof wrapped around me in case the wind gets strong along the coast.

Have fun everyone!

Congratulations to everyone who finished yesterday!

I had a tough race, messed up badly at the start by going way too fast in the first half getting there in 1h30m then something happened with my knee and I was pretty much in agony for the rest of the race - staggered back very slowly and finished in 3h42m - over 20m slower than my target.

But I have to say although I didn't enjoy that, more-or-less every runner who passed me asked if I was ok or needed help as did many of the supporters - and that made up for my pain and disappointment. 

Overall thought the race was really well organised, the stewards, supporters and fellow runners were great - so thanks to all of them. I would suggest anyone considering doing this race in the future to get some cross-country experience - the mud and puddles make it a very different sort of challenge to a bog-standard road race.

My GPS came back with 26.3 miles.

Great race - really good fun compared to road races once you realised that running in a straight line through puddles on the forefoot was far better than weaving around them.

I couldn't get my heartrate down which was annoying - I ran the first 19 miles at a pace that would have been 150bpm in training but on the day was 160+ However, it didn't rise at all which was good, so with 7 miles to go I got a bit bored of going slowly and sprinted to the finish at 170-175bpm. Apologies to all the people I came piling past in the last 6 miles. Finished in 3:38 - my dry weather road target was 3:23 so considering the conditions, perhaps that 15 mins would have been very close? It was a personal best anyway!

Also, did anyone see Phil Hewitt (author of "Keep On Running") getting round with blood all over his face? You can read about it here: http://marathonaddictuk.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/the-kindness-of-runners/ It was me that distracted him just at the wrong moment! Ooops.