Gosh that looks super tough!
The path in Tilsley Park (basically near the end, before they let you on the track) was flooded for a few feet though, does that count?
Managed to get round in a few seconds over 4:30 (and finished with a sprint), which, considering my spare tyre and lack of training, I was suitably grateful for! There you go peeps - set your standards low, and stuff yourself full of guarana energy gels. The last three miles were very much wall territory but luckily I was running with a VRUK clubmate for most of them, which was pretty lucky as it's a bit lonely towards the back of the pack. And at Abo, 4h+ kind of is.... at a big city marathon it's doing well!
The OH was running the disco Jovi, we had a dry run yesterday to make sure he didn't fall off the bike and could work all the bits and knew where the spare batteries were etc etc. Luckily his main marshalling spot (he also did the first roundabout, for his sins) is on the cycle path, so no safety worries at all. He said it was "interesting" when the five runners aiming for a world record (I think they got it) for fastest marathon bungeed together or something, lapped Blind Paul and his guide, on the rather narrow cycle path, but, he said, Paul & guide just stopped briefly to let them pass (very wise!) so no-one ended up in the ditch.
I got lapped surprisingly early by the leader (from Woodstock so local) and then the 2nd placed runner (an Amblers clubmate, who is more of an ultra runner but has been taking the marathon seriously this year, i.e. not running in a Fred Flintstone/Clown/Elvis costume and overtaking all the guys who were killing themselves to break 3h) was a way back.
"He's gone off too fast!" I said hopefully.
"Hope so!" he said, and, as he put the burners on in the last couple of miles from 90secs behind to win in a new PB, hey, turns out that was right. V. pleased for him.
A much different experience from my first Abo (first mara! 2nd race!) in '06 - fatter, slower, but more experienced, and knew a lot of the runners and the marshalls of course! Only 8 mins slower so considering my longest continuous run was 18 miles not bad ! MUST TRAIN. IS MUCH EASIER WHEN YOU TRAIN.
Clubmate insisted on giving me a lift home despite the fact that it's only 3/4 mile away and I could just jog back (Amblers won the ladies team prize, yay, but one of the ladies keeled over afterwards, and as you know my normal complexion is a healthy light green, so possibly they were a bit spooked). It then took me five mins to recover my door key which had been VERY firmly gaffertaped to my shorts ! (Also pinned, but that was easy enough to sort out).
Shower then went out for coffee with friends and bumped into the VRUK club secretary who had travelled out to support us.
So it was a very social day. Nice seeing the lady I chatted to at the start (as the bail bus crawled behind us for the first mile!) finish! All manner of people running. My boss (who trained well, and it was a cool day, so hopefully he finally got a result in line with his ability), H the cheery ultrarunner we sometimes see at ParkRun, PloddingHippo, Douglas from the Comrades lot, a Pirate with pink hair, Lucy who we used to see in yoga class, and even more people at the finish.
And the dogs did not wee on the floor!
