9th February 2014
Deal, Kent
This was a bit of an impromptu race. I mentioned to my friend Philip who was up in London last week that I thought there was a half marathon in Deal which could be fun. Philip emailed the next day to say that we were welcome to stay with him as he lives in the nearby village of Kingsdown. I hadn’t realised it was this weekend! After a bit of deliberation as to whether we were ready for a Half Marathon we decided to go for it and treat it as a training run for the Steyning Stinger in early March.
We drove down on Saturday evening and were treated to a large pasta dish loaded with fresh fish and vegetables, just the ticket. After a restful nights sleep Philip kindly drove us up to the start. We paid our £20.00 late booking fee, collected our chip timing gizmo and numbers and headed off for the 10.30 start. I suppose there were around 400 people there. The route consists of a lead-in of two or three miles connecting to a big loop. The surface is all road and although it is described as hilly it is not severe in any way. All the hills are runnable without any need to put the brakes on during the down hill stretches. The up hill stretches were gentle but quite long. Despite the whole of England being drenched with floods and blasted by gales it was actually a really nice day! The sun was out and there was a very stiff, but not too cold, wind. The road surface was basically dry with just one puddle. Can’t complain about that or indeed anything else. The race was very well organised with ample friendly marshals, lots of water stations and clear mile markers. I don’t normally drink any water on half marathons. I have a good big glassful about an hour before and drink a fair whack after but never feel the need en route. Most of the runners were club runners with all the local clubs taking part and quite a few travelling from far afield. I was pleased enough with my time of 1 hour 46 minutes and 48 seconds (chip time). After the race we all went to the Zetland Arms on the beach in Kingsdown for a gastronomic Sunday Lunch. What a perfect day!
Leave a Reply