First, statistics: I was 90th out of 167 finishers, 12th in my age group, in an official time of 4:17:33. In sixteen weeks of training I ran 522.61 miles. So I failed to run a marathon in less than four hours, but remain convinced that I could, perhaps on an easier surface. 
The marathon started in overcast weather; at Avebury, I saw the stone circle for the first time (see John Aubrey’s description), and it drizzled a little as I was changing in the churchyard. The knee trouble I’d had persisted, indeed when I’d got up that morning was quite bad, but I put on a sports bandage, which seemed to do the trick.
At the start I met Paul who was running this
as his fourth marathon in a row, having done the Bath Beat, London and
Stratford over the previous three weekends, and Denzil, who I’d
promised some spare gels on the Runners World forum, which he couldn’t
find locally. I love small marathons: there was no queue for the loos,
not even for the ladies.
The start, after a warning that the mile markers were not to be relied
on, came just after 10.30. The first couple of miles were flat and
easy, and I stopped myself from going too fast. At about three miles,
past the first of many water stops, we started to climb. The hills were
like the Sussex downs. I think the geology must be similar; there was
one place where we followed a path on the side of a summit, with
terraces below just like those above Kingston. It was still grey at
this point, but the views were marvellous. I twisted an ankle, but not
badly, while missing my footing. After a couple of miles on the hills,
there was a steep descent. there had been some fell-runners staying in
the B&B with me and here they let themselves go, flying past me at
unimaginable speed. I wish I could learn to run downhill like that.
Then there was a long flat stretch on a mixture of road and path along
the valley bottom, crossing the Kennet & Avon canal, and , more
alarmingly, the mainline railway from Paddington to Exeter by means of
an ungated crossing. Here we started to meet the walkers, who made
encouraging remarks as we overtook.
At about mile ten we met Redhorn Hill, which was supposed to be the
steepest ascent of the course. It was hard, but not too hard, no worse
than anything round here. As I fought my way up it, I fell in with two
other runners, one who was on his 203rd marathon and Tavis, an
archaeologist turned geography teacher, on his first marathon and
wearing black-and-white accessories to make him look like a
Holstein-Friesian cow
We three ran together for the next few miles. Now we were on Salisbury
Plain, running on concrete surfaces or tank tracks, with some
undulation, but this passed fairly easily. It was intermittently sunny,
and I have some fine sunburn on shoulders and legs. Someone said there
were no more hills after Redhorn Hill, but this was a lie.
At around mile 17 Tavis and I tackled a long slow ascent, running into
the south-westerly wind. I found this hard. I much prefer quick steep
climbs to long ones, which seem so much more taxing. The wind also
below a lot of dust around, not helped by 4X4 drivers who were out for
a morning’s environmental destruction before Sunday lunch.
We kept going; Tavis had by now shed most of his cow clothing. Another
unreliable runner told us that at the 20 mile point you could see
Stonehenge, but we certainly couldn’t. By now I was starting to suffer:
the bandaged knee was fine but, perhaps to compensate, the other one
was very painful. The last three miles were really hard for everyone: I
passed one poor soul dragging his leg and groaning at every step.
Stonehenge only revealed itself about 800m before the end. Tavis had enough left to speed up, but I finished at a slow pace.
At the finish we were welcomed, a lady shook us all by the hand and
gave out medals and tickets for remarkably lavish goodie bags. I ate my
way through the entire bag, pitta bread with hummus, falafel and salad,
slice of pizza, orange, banana and a cereal bar. That wasn’t enough, so
I bought a slice of cake from the tea tent and a delicious double
strawberry ice cream from a van. I could have had a free trip under the
A303 to see Stonehenge, but contented myself with taking pictures from
the top of the bus back to Salisbury. Then the long journey home, and a
bottle of cava at the end.
What next? Well, first of all there is the University of Sussex
boundary run tomorrow, the Seaford half-marathon on 3 June , and some
other summer runs, for example the Seaford 10k if it’s still going . I
had hoped to do the Firle 10k too, but that has moved to September and
been subsumed in a Glynde and Firle Festival of Sport.
As to which autumn marathon, it is tempting to choose something other
than the Beachy Head, which I have now run three times.
