Bournville Harriers: Birmingham's only Flora London Marathon Partner Club! : Marathon Centre

Phil had a number for the race but couldn't do it, so for a laugh I thought I'll give it a go, well without doing the mileage in training I did quite well up to 18 miles 6.15 pace, running with second lady in, then the wheels fell off and it was taxi back to the finish ha! ha!

Mike writes:

An ankle injury in cross country led to enforced rest which left me only 7 weeks training, in which I tried to amalgamate road relay duties with long runs. Race preparation involved night shifts followed by Transatlantic flight, then a week in Toronto hotel and conference, flying back on Friday morning then a 7.5 hour drive in holiday traffic to Edinburgh. I tried to take all of these factors into account when deciding on a pace to run and thought that about 7:30/mile would be appropriate.

Race organisation was fine. The start was at the top of a hill I knew that we would not have to come back up, the temperature was a perfect 11c and so the first 4 miles through the city went by in no time and the pace felt very comfortable. At 4 miles however we crossed onto the coast road where we were hit by the full force of a 28mph north west wind. The race followed the coast round into the wind up to the 18 mile mark, I could feel the wind draining energy out of me and the undulating road felt a lot steeper than it probably was, so I backed of the pace a little thinking I might step it up again with the wind at my back. At 18 miles there was a sharp right turn, straight uphill on an uneven gravel track, which felt unnecessarily gruelling but just past that was the turnaround point and it felt great to loose the constant press of the wind.

By this time the sun had come out and the temperature was rising fast. A minor setback occurred at around 21 miles where I was assailed by waves of nausea, as my legs felt fine and I was not working hard, I guessed that I had let myself dehydrate so slowed up at the next 2 water stations and took on about 1 litre of water. I ran an easy couple of miles to let myself absorb it and was back up to pace by 24 miles. The last 2 miles were a joy, I felt strong at the finish and there was a great crowd cheering us in to the finish in front of a Stand at Mussleborough race course. 3.21.55 is a pb for me by 28 minutes.

My travelling support spotted 1 other BvH vest, described as “older guy, short, glasses, on about 2:45 pace through 2 mile mark” but I couldn’t place the description [seems to be Andy C, but he's not in the results].