I completed this race this morning and only realised when I got home that it is the first full marathon I've done for a few years. I'm sure that there is an unwritten rule that says you can't describe yourself as a marathon runner if you haven't done one in the last twelve months.
The Portsmouth Coastal Waterside Marathon is an annual event in support of the RNLI. The use of both "Coastal" and "Waterside" in the title should give you a clue as to what the course was like; alongside the Solent and occasionally in it! It was also pancake flat which should have made for a good time. Unfortunately the conditions underfoot plus the wind didn't help with that.
As I left the house this morning at 06:30 the rain was absolutely torrential and it was occasionally hailing as well. We've had gales and heavy rain for the last few days and the forecasters described today as "the lull before the storms get serious"! As I got closer to Newbury to pick up the A34 the rain stopped and I started to feel optimistic that maybe it wasn't going to be quite as bad as I'd feared. That feeling lasted until about 15minutes before the race was due to start when the heavens opened again.
The start was at the Pyramids Leisure Centre in Southsea which is also where the Great South Run starts (or at least used to). Parking was OK and Race HQ was adequate; I'm not quite sure where the organisers expected 1,600 people to wait after registering and dropping off their kit but the room that they had certainly wasn't big enough. There were just about enough loos but I went quite early and didn't see what the queues were like closer to the start.
The torrential rain lasted until about 30seconds after the start and after about an hour we were running in beautiful sunshine.
I had read all of the preparation emails and as a result was expecting footpaths, trails and the occasional detour onto the beach (to be fair it did say "shingle"). What I wasn't expecting was streams, seaweed, small lakes that came over the top of my shoes and mud. Miles and miles of mud.
I got talking to a couple of guys at the start who had done the course several times before who I noticed were wearing trail shoes. Apparently mud is the order of the day for this route and a week of heavy rain had only made that worse. I don't mid a bit of mud (I go running with @NeilySan - I have no choice) but I do like to be prepared for it and not be wearing road shoes. As a result of dodging the quagmires and puddles – that spanned the entire path in places – I think I ran an extra couple of kilometres.
Marshalling was excellent and the signs were as good as they needed to be; it would have been difficult to go wrong.
I was feeling good until about 30k when I fell rather heavily on one of the muddy paths finding the only rocky bits to hit my knee and elbow on. The guy behind me was an absolute hero; he grabbed me, dragged me to my feet, put my water bottle back in my hand and ran on. After a lot of swearing an limping I got back into my stride and when I passed him a little while later I had to confess that if he hadn't done that I might not have got going again.
The last 10k was into a strong head wind that sapped what little energy I had left. When I crossed the finish line I was absolutely certain that I had "left nothing on the course".
Great timing for a marathon but not a great course. I will probably look for an alternative next year.
RunKeeper timing: 3:36:58
Official timing (net): 3:36:45
Official position (net): 176 / 1166
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