Race report (21 April 2012)

I arrived at Preston Park around 8 o'clock on Sunday morning. People were pouring in from all sides and the park was already full of thousands of runners. The temperature was a modest 7 degrees but the sky was a brilliant blue and the sunshine was strong. The only worry was the strong northerly breeze predicted by the forecasters. After an extra unexpected trip to the portable toilets I decided to be on the safe side and take a third Imodium. Then I was lining up with the other Bhopal runners for a group picture before we funnelled into our pens for the start.

I had originally set myself a goal of three and a half hours (8:00 minutes a mile) but I felt so good on my last two training runs that I thought I might go for 3 hours 25 minutes (7:50 minutes a mile). The plan was that I and two club mates, Colin and Dominic, would go off at about that pace and see what happened. In the end Dominic got separated into a different pen, so at the start I was just with Colin. 9 o'clock approached, the horn sounded and we were off, streaming out of the park onto the road with cheering crowds on either side. Everything seemed to go so easily that Colin and I found ourselves bowling along at around 7:15, which would bring us in at an implausible 3 hours 10 minutes, and it seemed a shame to force ourselves to slow down.

After a couple of miles we passed the three and a half hour pace group, three pacers running steadily abreast with flags marked '3:30' fluttering above them and a large clutch of runners behind them. They seemed to be crawling along. We headed in and out through the cheering streets of central Brighton, with runners in sight everywhere going in different directions, then up through Kemptown, onto the seafront and out to the East. The crosswind wasn't noticeable and we had settled into a 7:30 pace. At 7 miles we saw the lead pack of 6 or 7 Africans coming back in the other direction. They were already nearly at 11 miles, with an empty gap of 300 or 400 meters behind them.

At 8 miles we turned North into Ovingdean valley. The headwind was there but not serious and we were still doing 7:30 without effort. I said to Colin 'In my race report I'll be writing "Stupidly I allowed myself to be dragged along at 7:30 by Colin for the first eight miles and then I went to pieces at eighteen miles.' We laughed insouciantly, but so it proved to be. Another club mate and Bhopal runner, Mat, came up behind us at about that point and Colin stayed with him. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and let them go on ahead, but my pace was still around 7:30.

Surrounded by thousands of runners, I came back down Ovingdean valley and along the seafront into the centre of Brighton, keeping an eye out all the time for other Bhopal runners coming in the opposite direction so as to shout to them. Then it was past the Palace Pier and out along the front towards Hove. The crowds were thick and thanks to the name on my vest people were continually shouting 'Go Andy!' – so much so that I was distracted by one of them and completely missed my family on the opposite side of the street cheering me as I went past. I went through the half-way mark in 1 hour 39 minutes, an average of 7:33 a mile.

Then we cut slightly inland and ran all the way down Church Street for two miles then all the way back again. I started to find it hard to maintain 7:30, but I was still doing 7:45 so that was fine. Then I was doing 8:00 and I wasn't feeling so fine. At 18 miles Dominic cruised past me with some encouraging words which were lost on me. People were now starting to pass me in large numbers. I decided on the tactic of latching on to someone who had come past me as a pacemaker, but each time I would notice after a while that he was no longer just ahead of me but 50 metres away, then out of sight.

By 20 miles we were heading out towards the bleakest section of the course, the loop round Shoreham Power Station, and my pace was down to 8:20. It was at that point that I felt the first flutter of a cramp in my right calf. At 22 miles it spread to my left calf too.

The last four miles, back from power station and along the seafront to the Palace Pier and the finish, were the surely most difficult half hour of my life. My pace slumped to around 8:40 and I desperately tried to hold it there. I was repeatedly getting cramps in both legs. I tried to relax my style and managed to keep going. Runners were overtaking me by the dozen, and I was constantly expecting the 3:30 pacing group come striding past me. I knew if they did there would be nothing I could do to keep up with them and my three and a half hour dream would be in tatters. People in the crowd shouted 'Andy' incessantly but I was incapable of responding. The West Pier looked as if it was miles away, and then I knew there was still a hefty distance after it to the Palace Pier and the finish. There was a man 10 metres in front of me who was running with such small steps that he seemed to be almost walking, but it took a superhuman effort to keep up with him.

Somehow I got past the West Pier. At 25 miles a heard a terrific fuss in the crowd on my right and there were my family yelling me on. I never needed encouragement as much as I did at that point. Then it was on to the Palace Pier. Just there I got such a bad cramp in my left hamstring that I was convinced I was going to have to stop. I looked at my watch and it told me I had done 25.9 miles – only a quarter of a mile to go. Somehow I managed to relax and keep going until the cramp wore off, and then I was on the finishing straight with the crowds yelling on all sides and I realised I was there. I crossed the finish line and checked my watch, and it said 3:27:02.

Afterwards I wasn't able to think straight for about half an hour, but eventually I managed to get together with the family for a picnic on the cold beach and to see some of the other Bhopal runners in the charity tent. All 17 who had started had successfully finished – a fantastic achievement.

Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me with a donation to the Bhopal Medical Appeal. Including money promised to us, it looks as if the team will end up by raising nearly £6000.  Thanks also to everyone who gave such great support to the runners on the day, and especially to Jess, Scott, Alex, Jo, Menna, and Hedley. Six days on, I am able to get downstairs without embarrassment and already starting to think about a spring marathon next year. Why do we do this?

Background

In April 2011 I ran the Brighton Marathon to raise funds for the Alzheimer's Society. I would like to thank everyone who sponsored me so generously for that run.

The next day I saw an advertisement in the souvenir edition of the Brighton Argus asking for volunteers to run in the 2012 Marathon to raise funds for the Bhopal Medical Appeal. The BMA funds two free clinics in Bhopal, India for the survivors of the disaster at the Union Carbide chemical plant there in 1984 and for children who are still being born with illnesses caused by the groundwater pollution from the plant.

This led me to find out more about Bhopal and the BMA. I was appalled to discover the huge scale of the tragedy at Bhopal and also very moved by the work that the BMA is doing there. As a result, on 15 April 2012 I am planning to run Brighton Marathon again as part of a team of students and staff from the University of Sussex.

Please sponsor me if you would like to. (Below are some indications of what the money can do).

As to times, last year I surprised myself by finishing in 3:48. This year my ambition is to break three and a half hours ...

Andrew

£10 pays for a child to have one month of speech therapy
£30 provides a month’s physiotherapy for four children
£50 provides special education to seven children for a month
£100 runs a minibus for a month, bringing ten children to the Chingari clinic
£250 buys a month’s supply of inhalers for people with asthma
£500 helps train an entire community in how to prevent TB
£1200 would provide us with two sorely-needed computers
£6000 pays a doctor’s salary for a year
£16000 runs the Sambhavna clinic for one month

 

Update: 30th March 2012 

Just over two weeks to go to the marathon and I'm starting to get that feeling again of being sucked towards the top of a waterfall. Here's a quick summary of the ups and downs of the last month or two of training.

19th February: the Brighton Half Marathon. A very good run but somewhat marred by the fact that the organisers accidentally placed a turnaround point 300 meters further down the road than it should have been, adding a third of a mile to the distance. I did find the last third of a mile of the race particularly hard.

26th February: our first long group run, 16 miles over the Downs. Glorious weather and no mishaps.

4th March: second long run over the same route. This time it was cold, windy and rainy and the going was very muddy and slippery. I wore flat-heeled shoes, managed to fall over twice, and according to the physiotherapist I have just seen I probably tore a shoulder muscle in one fall. I was also underdressed for the weather, in a cotton T-shirt and runnings shorts, and by the time I got back I think I was hypothermic, so long did it take me to warm up. The last few miles were my worst ever running experience.

11th March: a long group run up and down Brighton seafront, 22 miles and 3 hours. All well.

18th March: another group run, this time along the seafront from Brighton and Worthing and back. Another 22 miles, though this time it was because I and the team-mate I was running with managed to lose our way on the way back and added extra distance. Thanks to increasing rain and cold I was pretty exhausted at the end.

25th March: Hastings Half Marathon. A 13 mile circuit all the way round the outskirts of Hastings, taking in two miles of continuous climb from mile 3 onwards. I ran up the climb too quickly and spent the rest of the race regretting it.

Now I am 'tapering', with a last semi-long run of 12 miles over the Downs on Sunday. My shoulder still hurts but otherwise everything seems to be functioning. According to calculations based on my Half Marathon times I can just about run a marathon in my target of three and a half hours, but it will be a close thing

Meanwhile the rest of the team have had a series of adventures too extensive to detail, including a variety of different injuries that have unfortunately forced some to pull out. Still it looks as if there may be 20 of us on the start line on 15th April.

For more, see the Badger (Sussex students newspaper) story in January, the Brighton Argus story in March, and our team's Facebook page.

So far I have raised just over £600 for the Bhopal Medical Appeal, more than than half way to my target of £1000. Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me!

Andrew

----

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they do not sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they will send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. It is the most efficient way to donate.

---