Crowdsourcing my runs

Over the last few weeks, I've hit a bit of a creative slump with regards to my running. In the absence of parkrun and the social aspect therein, I've been doing the same routes and getting bored of it. I decided to shake things up a bit and ask my friends on social media to choose for me. A soft launch on Twitter using a carefully selected series of polls (to prevent people telling me to run a marathon in 20 minutes) kicked things off.

Manipulating polls to get the results I wanted

The week after, I tried Instagram, giving followers who cared enough to interact with my stories the choice of a fast and flat run, or hills (hills hills). Unsurprisingly they picked the hills, with a follow-up question seeing 2/3rds choose hill repeats over one big hill in a poorly worded question. Due to wanting a beer on a Saturday night, I elected to do these the morning after watching the film/war-crime Cats, but on the bright side after three 2km reps up a steep hill my hangover was gone! With a nice 2k to get there warming me up (and down afterwards), and the hill being a kilometre high, it was a great route to discover for the future.

So, with a bit of success from these, I opened things up to user submissions. Knowing that they'd probably send me on a route that includes Land's End, John O'Groats, Mordor, Atlantis and Venus, I kept things simple and asked for music submissions. The rules included one track per person, and outlawed any repeats. I also pledged to listen in the order of submission to avoid any suggestions I was adjusting the playlist to make it easier on me. I also privately promised to run for the entire length of the playlist - had I admitted this, I could pinpoint exactly who would submit the longest song they could find just for a laugh (and one of them couched their suggestion with "the longest version of this song you can find", proving me right).

I was nervous about it, especially knowing what the second song was, and only familiar with about a quarter of the songs submitted. How would they fare as running songs? How would they hold up as songs at all? How far would I have to run? Where is the love? Do they know it's Christmas? D'ya know what I mean?

1. MØL - Bruma (Patrick)

Straight in with something new, a shoegazey metal band from Denmark! If the two coffees to start the day hadn't woken me up already, this definitely would have done. I really liked it, it reminded me of Arch Enemy and I'm going to check out more of their work later this week.

Song: 8/10

Suitability as a running soundtrack: 10/10

2. Crazy Frog - Axel F (Conor)

And the first of the troll submissions. (To be fair, with the amount of shots I've taken at Swindon Town on Twitter, I deserved it.) This started as a "grit your teeth and pray for it to end" song but the steady beat and 80s synths really helped me click into my pace - it's just a shame about the ringtone championing amphibian singing all over it! 

Song: 3/10

Running: 8/10 (I'll add the original to my regular running playlists)

3. Bastille - Joy (Dana)

Any song after the preceding one would be a blessing, but this just clicked with me. Maybe it was seeing the sun breaking through the clouds above the piers, maybe it was just the general pleasantness of the song, but it definitely uplifted my spirits ahead of what could turn out to be a gruelling run. 

Song: 8/10

Running: 8/10

4. Bill Withers - Lovely Day (Kerry)

And another nice song. A steady beat, a song that moves along at a fair clip, it was a surprise that I found it so easy to run to but I'm pleased it was added. I don't know that it would've clicked quite as much if it had been chucking it down but it really was a lovely day for running!

Song: 10/10

Running: 7/10

5. Vidiots - Dog Rap (Ryan)

I was nervous about this song to start with. I had absolutely no idea what to expect and was slightly scared of what I would have to listen to. Luckily, within about 10 seconds I realised it was exactly the sort of rap parody you'd see on SNL or an episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and I had a great time with it! I did have trouble keeping my cadence to it, unfortunately.

Song: 7/10

Running: 6/10

6. Turbowolf - Domino (CJ)

I won't lie, I was half hoping that this would be a metal cover of a Jessie J song. It wasn't, but that wasn't much of a detriment - just three minutes of full on rock 'n' roll, and another band I'll check out more of later!

Song: 9/10

Running: 8/10

7. Rammstein - Deutschland (Sophie)

Finally, a familiar song! I've run to this track before, and it's not the only one of theirs that I've run to, so I could relax into the run a bit easier. I really should remember that my mask blocks infection but not my voice, as I think I scared other runners by singing along.

Song: 10/10

Running: 9/10

8. Das Sound Machine - World Championship Finale (Amie)

And from a German band to a faux-German group, performing a mash-up of Fall Out Boy and DJ Khaled. While I didn't enjoy the Pitch Perfect movies as much as people expected, this was a clever combination of two songs I was vaguely familiar with, didn't overstay its welcome, and even raised a smile!

Song: 7/10

Running: 5/10

9. Brothers Osborne - It Ain't My Fault (Dad)

Again, more expectations of pop song covers dashed, but even though this isn't a countrified Zara Larsson song it still rocked! A good steady beat, it reminded me of a train but that may have been because I was running next to a railway line! Another pleasant discovery. I realised at this point that this was also probably the most different male vocalists I'd listened to in succession in years.

Song: 9/10

Running: 7/10

10. HUNGER - Light It Up (Elise)

Knowing the musical overlap I have with Elise, I was surprised to hear a(nother) male vocalist on this track. It was great despite that, the song reminded me of a third act heroic run in a teen movie, which really boosted my serotonin.

Song: 8/10

Running: 8/10

11. Prince - When Doves Cry (Julia)

The first of three submissions from the same person, and reluctantly the only one I could keep. It's to my shame that I forget how good a musician Prince was, and this was a welcome reprise. It soundtracked the portion of my run along the western arm of Brighton Marina, and reminded me of that beautiful moment when two people called Milhouse finally meet.

Song: 10/10

Running: 9/10

12. BLACKPINK - BOOMBAYAH (Laura)

I'm glad I stuck to my guns regarding not using shuffle, as it lead to this colourful trend - mix black and pink and you get purple, the previous artist's signature colour! Another familiar song, another relaxing segment of the run, by this point along the foot of the cliffs towards Saltdean. By now I was confident of being able to run to pretty much any song - alternating between music and podcasts over the last few years had broken me out of old habits of needing fast paced songs to keep me going. I could just settle in and enjoy the mix of English and Korean!

Song: 9/10

Running: 9/10

13. P!nk - Raise Your Glass (Emily)

It is a fault of my own that I associate too many songs with the TV show Glee. I noticed it working my way through Van Halen's discography the other week; I noticed it here as well. I mostly put that out of my mind after the first verse, focusing on P!nk's snarky asides that didn't make it into the sanitised, TV friendly version. It also made me realise that I really should listen to her more!

Song: 8/10

Running: 8/10

14. Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto - The Girl From Ipanema (Jess)

This was the first song that genuinely threw me off my pace. I stumbled and said (probably too loudly, I'm sure that people overheard) "what the fuck is this?!" when the French jazz came on. Over five minutes long, I felt myself slowing, and willing it to end. My colleague's attempt to throw me off worked - I'm just glad she didn't choose Ed Sheeran!

Song: 2/10

Running: 0/10

15. A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away) (Charley)

(This worked really well, but the plan for using the gif came to me within seconds of the intro and I couldn't not do it)

Song: 9/10

Running: 8/10

16. The Walkmen - The Rat (Garry)

By this point I had hit the turn around point and was heading back towards town, along the undulating clifftop. It was also the penultimate song that I had no idea about, and another surprise! Chock full of driving drums, it reminded me (to no detriment) of The Bravery's An Honest Mistake, and I was pleased to find out later that the two songs were released within six months of each other! Another song that'll find its way onto my regular running playlists in the future.

Song: 8/10

Running: 10/10

17. Chemical Brothers - Galvanize (Eveline)

I could've sworn when I was listening to this song that it had been used on an advert, or TV show, perhaps as part of an exercise montage - but Wikipedia is remaining mute on the subject. Regardless, it made me feel like I was in one, so this is going on the playlist from now on. You might say it...galvanised...me into running faster!

Song: 8/10

Running: 10/10

18. Russ Abbot - Atmosphere (James)

The final song on this list that I knew nothing about - and within seconds I was convinced it was a hastily written song to cash in on the popularity of Agadoo. According to Google this was written by Joy Division, but I'm certain that's incorrect. Spotify credits the singer, and it's really not good. I'm just glad it had some semblance of pace to it so it didn't drag!

Song: 1/10

Running: 1/10

19. Britney Spears - Toxic (Adam)

About ten years ago the branch of German budget supermarket Aldi in Canterbury closed down, and the cramped site was taken over by upmarket supermarket Waitrose. The sudden increase in quality is a perfect metaphor for the vast uptick in quality between the last song and this. The Grammy award winning track is the musical equivalent of doping - listening to it makes you run faster, lighter, easier and happier.

Song: 10/10

Running: 11/10

20. Faithless - Insomnia (Laura)

This was a song I was convinced I knew, but two-thirds of the way into the song it still wasn't ringing any bells...until the bells kicked in and I recognised the bit played on Invicta FM on the car rides to school all those years ago. Another great song to run to, soundtracking my run along Marine Parade back to the pier.

Song: 9/10

Running: 8/10

21. Garbage - Temptation Waits (Charlie)

The opening track on the first proper album I ever owned, and the third track on the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" original soundtrack album...this is very possibly one of my most listened to songs, ever. A slow burner, it explodes on the listener partway through - and I guess knowing I only had ten minutes left of my run helped boost my motivation too!

Song: 8/10

Running: 8/10

22. Focus - Hocus Pocus (live at the Rainbow) (Jack)

This was submitted with the caveat of "hopefully a 15 minute live version". The longest one I could find was "only" eight and a half minutes, but the yodelling and guitars sped me to a fast finish on Hove Lawns. I really need to give the studio version another listen!

Song: 8/10

Running: 9/10

Had I just been listening to podcasts, I probably would've called it a day at 10 or 12k. I tucked another 6k under my belt (two more pints in my beer total), covered a more interesting route, and good lord are my legs feeling it now! 

I follow too many football teams

Decided to sit down and compile a list of all the various football teams I'm following at the moment, across different leagues and countries, and note the reason I started supporting them as well as the extent to which I follow. I was surprised.

Arsenal WFC: started following the club on 4th July 2018, when they signed my favourite footballer, Tabea Kemme. Bought a season ticket and attended as many games as my work pattern would allow; from the first game I was amazed by Dutch striker Vivianne Miedema, the best forward I'd seen play since Robert Taylor's purple patch in 1999. Despite missing all 4 of Tabea's appearances for the club, I bought a shirt with her name and number on it which I've worn to every game possible, home and away. The last match I saw in person was a 4-0 win at Brighton back in January (easier to get to than home games, so of course I'd go) during which I realised that despite Tabbi's injury worries, I was in deep enough to care about the other players. This turned out to be prescient as two days later she retired from playing. Thanks to the FA Player, I can watch (almost) every match streamed live to my tablet. 

Matches seen: 5 home, 5 away (Lewes, Brighton [Amex], Crawley, Spurs [new White Hart Lane], Brighton)

Shirts: 1 - 2018/2019 home shirt with Kemme 22 on the back.

Gillingham FC (mens): Where it all began. Attended my first game against Doncaster Rovers in April 1995, taken by my dad and granddad. The Gills won 4-2, my younger brother and I had room enough to chase each other around the terrace. Since then I've experienced nauseating lows, dizzying highs, and creamy middles. As of 21st May 2019 my support for the club has been on hold - they appointed Steve Evans - a man who had previously convicted of tax evasion and falsifying accounts, a man who had previously sought to incite Gillingham staff and players whenever his teams played against the Gills, and an all round nasty piece of work - as manager of the first team. I could not in good conscience support a side managed by him, in person or remotely, so I packed away my shirts/scarf/badges, muted the club's social media accounts, and my Saturday afternoons were a lot more fun as a result. He's still at the club, they're currently fourth in the League One table, but this summer they cut loose the associated women's side, so I don't know if I'll ever go back.

Matches attended: bloody loads. In the three figures, easily. Had a season ticket one year. Attended at least 1/3 of all games - home and away - in the promotion season linked above. Been going at least once a season for the past 20-odd years, mostly more than that. Away games at Crawley a few times (making it my joint second most visited stadium, apart from Priestfield and tied with Meadow Park), once at Spurs (old White Hart Lane), West Brom, Millwall (that was fun, got the tickets through work, ended up with the home fans, Gillingham got a last minute winner that we couldn't celebrate), Charlton twice, a reserve game at Leighton Orient, the above linked game at Wycombe where we went down, strangely not Brighton though.

Shirts: had plenty over the years. I've still got the shirt we got promoted in with Thomson 27 on the back, signed by a number of the squad, somewhere. Currently I only have two - the 2009 promotion shirt because it looks pretty good, and the 2011 home shirt because of fond Football Manager memories!

Borussia Dortmund (mens): Over a decade ago I started a relationship with a German woman. In the getting to know you stage, I asked her what her nearest Bundesliga* club was. (My small talk has since improved. Slightly.) She replied "Dortmund", and I started following the club. I'm not saying that I'm responsible for the team's subsequent uptick in form - they won the league two seasons running after I visited the ground, adding the Pokal (cup) in the second season as well - but I'm not not saying that either. The availability of streams plus the free-flowing, attacking football made them an easy follow, especially at a time when Gillingham went 35 games without an away win in all competitions. I look forward to the club starting up a women's side next season, especially as they're starting from the bottom rather than expecting to be parachuted into the Frauen Bundesliga.

Matches: just the one so far in person, an entertaining 2-3 loss to Wolfsburg in December 2012.

Shirts: had a 2004 home shirt that was horrible material, very plasticky. Also have a really comfortable and stylish 2012 away shirt that I couldn't wear for a few years due to it having Hummels' name on - thankfully he's returned from his Bayern defection now. A Munich fan who stayed with us a couple of years ago found the whole thing hilarious.

*I'm glad I specified the country, as while she grew up nearly 100km from the Westfalonstadion, she was only 20km from FC Twente - but it was complicated enough explaining to people in the early days why I was following a German team, and I think trying to tell them I was following a Dutch side due to my German partner might've been far too much!

BSG Chemie Leipzig (mens): Dortmund aren't the only German side I've hitched my wagon to, but they're the most high profile. Faced with an indefinite period of time with nothing to do during lockdown, and growing tired of my other FM careers, I set about giving myself a challenge. Due to the high praise dished out by the media to Red Bull Leipzig, a team funded by the energy drink conglomerate who bought their way up the league, I decided my challenge would be to - in the words of Sir Alex Ferguson - "knock them off their f**king perch. I wanted to make another team the biggest side in Leipzig. Scouting around the Wikipedia page for the city, and aided by this thoroughly informative Reddit post, I settled on Chemie due to their political leanings and colour scheme. Six real-life months and a dozen fictional seasons into the career, I'm one Bundesliga and one Pokal away from equalling the energy drink's trophy haul. I've taken an interest in the real life side as well, languishing away in the fifth tier of German football (an unholy hell of regional leagues and village sides).

Matches: not yet. One day I'll stand on the terrace of the Alfred-Kunze-Sportpark, Freiberger in hand, cheering on the side. But the raging pandemic that brought me to start the career is, ironically, preventing me from properly indulging.

Shirts: none, as I rarely wear football shirts these days. But this t-shirt is pretty cool.

Gillingham WFC: Simple thing here - when the side were cut adrift from the parent men's club as part of a cost-saving measure in the summer, I decided to go with the team who were not managed by an odious berk. I'm kooky like that.

Matches: one so far, a pre-season friendly away at Lewes last summer. I was the lone Gills fan. There were more dogs supporting the home side than humans cheering on the away team.

Shirts: none, as the club have switched to red after no longer being under the men's umbrella.

Valur (women's team): Some of these have deep, meaningful reasons behind my follow of them. Others, less so. In the early part of 2019 a friend of mine and his Czech girlfriend moved to Reykjavik to live for a bit. We visited them and were surprised to see floodlights from their balcony. Their flat overlooked a football ground, where Valur play, and so it was a simple thing to follow their side to feel closer to Paul and Barbora. It was weird seeing Valur's main striker, Elin Metta, posting Insta stories of playing with the same friendly cat that Paul does!

Matches: just the one streamed so far, due to a dearth of matches available online, but Valur won!

Shirts: christ don't give me ideas.

ACF Fiorentina Femminile: And if you thought that was a tenuous reason...last month we took a tour around Italy, stopping in Rome, Florence, Bologna and Venice. I wanted to get something football related to remember the trip by. Venice was out - I was going to the Venezia store anyway to pick up a few things for a mate who had guided them to glory on Football Manager, and didn't want to tread on his toes. Rome was unsuccessful - Lazio's kits have been cool in the past, but their right-wing fans aren't for me, and Roma had some lovely coloured merch but nothing that grabbed me. A surprise heavy shower sent us scurrying into the Fiorentina club shop, a place I'd earmarked to visit anyway, and a lovely flattering jacket jumped off the shelf at me. (It helped that it was reduced from €100 to €30!) Why the women's side over the men's? Women's football is just much more fun!

Matches: just a 3-1 streaming loss to Sassuolo a few weeks ago. Who loses to a Phil Collins single?!

Shirts: no shirts, but a sexy jacket.

Ashwood City FC (mens, fictional): Ashwood City are Kent's only Premier League side. One of the founder members of the Football League, they've never been relegated from the Premier League. They're also fictional, the main subject of football podcast The Offensive. Now in its third season, it's been a weekly highlight, weaving current football events into an ongoing story arc. It's occasionally sweary, frequently hilarious, and clearly written by someone who's lived in Kent judging by the accurate jabs at Kentish people/Gillingham! It also used an entire episode as set-up for a reference to the 1992 Whitney Houston/Kevin Costner film The Bodyguard, which still frequently makes me chuckle at random moments.

Matches: tricky, as they don't exist. Like Steve Evans' moral compass.

Shirts: nope.

Eastbourne half marathon

After April's failure, I decided to rethink my marathon strategy. Too little training would see me plod over the line after a quarter of a day, ashen-faced and regretting ever trying this running lark. Too much training would aggravate my runner's knee, and I'll end up seizing up 14/15 miles in again. I needed to strengthen my legs. I decided not to do a full marathon in 2020 (a decision partly made for me by the London ballot) and instead split it up - a half in the spring, and another in the autumn. I picked Worthing for the spring half - just along the coast from my regular lovely parkrun, it was one I did in 2017, flat, fairly well attended, decent support, flat, and near to a pub I'd been meaning to try but never had an excuse to. I refreshed my knowledge of the route, used Google Street View to adapt to the slight tweaks, did an 18km (11ish miles) Sunday run up and back down a 300m hill that had defeated me during last year's marathon training, visited the town to eyeball the route, and tapered my exercise the week before in preparation.

The more observant among you will notice that the title of this post does not contain "Worthing" anywhere in it.

Unfortunately two days before Storm Ciara put paid to the event, and it was rescheduled. I frantically tried to book in for Brighton Half - much closer, but also much more popular, and I was denied. Not believing I could raise enough for a charity place in two weeks I was pointed in the direction of the Eastbourne Half by my lovely wife Dana instead. I'd never run it, only supported my baby brother when he ran it three years ago, so I signed up. The last few days in the run-up were spent analysing segments on Strava, a wonderful run report on Runnit, and Google Street View until the hill got too scary and made me cry.

Oh yes, unlike lovely flat Worthing, Eastbourne had a whacking great hill after the first 5k or so. Still, I should be warmed up by then, and it'll be all downhill after, mostly flat along the promenade. I could do this. When I signed up I put down my predicted time in the 2:00-2:15 category - a PB, as my current PB was 2:18 at the time, but I was secretly hoping to crack the 2 hour mark. 

The Day Itself

After an earlier start than I would've liked, brought on by rail replacement buses (well done Network Rail for scheduling work blocking all trains to Eastbourne on the day of this event) and several trips to the bathroom, I bade goodbye to my wife and nestled myself quietly on the right hand side of the starting chute. I then edged my way across to the left hand side when I got a text from her giving her position on the left of the course as we headed out - I didn't want to miss the photo opportunities! A brief pose later and I decided to start taking it seriously. Plugging in my headphones I queued up a comedy podcast which got immediately quiet. Great. 

On a previous long run I had an issue with my phone in cold temperatures, as the metal case would contract ever-so-slightly, pressing down on the volume button and making whatever I listened to go silent. I had prepared a backup this time round though - an old Nexus 5 without a sim card stood in and I opened up the podcast app...to find none of my podcasts had downloaded last night! I hoped that Spotify wasn't facing the same issue, as then I'd have a very quiet run, but thankfully it was up to the task and I could listen to some banging tunes instead. As well as this technical issue, my smartwatch GPS decided not to connect, leading to a reset around 3 minutes in, which ended up working as well as a stroppy teenager and became little more than a glorified stopwatch. All these issues in the first five minutes made me think that those Luddites might've had a point!

The music didn't let me down, serving up pop banger after pop banger as we ran through the town and out the other side. Five kilometres down, and we started going up. I knew this section would be hilly but it was fine, we wouldn't be going as high up Beachy Head as I went the other Sunday, so it'll be easier, right? I forgot that the gradient up Devil's Dyke is a lot more forgiving than this and I regretted leaving my crampons, pitons and Sherpa back at base camp. After breaking through the cloud cover, ducking an airplane cruising at the usual height, and getting higher than Snoop Dogg on an average Tuesday, we turned and descended back to town. This was somewhat easier than the preceding few kilometres!

Breaking out of the trees and along the seafront I was greeted by a cool breeze at my back, refreshing and pushing me along. I passed the five mile mark and with some frantic maths (fingers were involved, I'm not ashamed of admitting that) calculated that I was slightly behind a 2 hour pace, but it was all flat from here so I was confident of getting that back. The crowds started picking up as we ran through the main part of town, emphasising again the morale boost from having your name printed on your shirt and people cheering for you. 

Under the pier at the six mile point I fired off a quick text to my wife with a rough ETA for when I'd see her, and politely requesting more water. We had walked this part of the route a couple of hours earlier, from the station to the park where the start/finish line was, so it was nice to be on familiar ground. I raced two small spectating children for a brief 50m portion of the course (and beat them - if they're going to challenge me I'm not going to let them win), did a bottle swap, bade goodbye to my wife and then embarked on the second half of the race as Britney's Toxic filled my ears.

Dana managed to swap drinks and take photos at the same time

There was a psychological blow of having passed my wife/the finishing line and now having to run away from them both, each step taking me further and further from them. I tried to shake it off, cursing myself for not putting any Taylor Swift on my running playlist, and a Dua Lipa track was not the right mood. A quick skip brought up a much better song and the ensuing endorphin rush settled my mood. I tucked in behind a guy in an orange vest who seemed to be going at much the right pace and turned my brain off for a bit - I didn't need to calculate my pace, look out for a supply drop, or acknowledge anybody cheering for me, so I could let my body go into autopilot for a bit.

Around mile 9 Rammstein gave way to the best song of the last decade and I rejoined the real world. Either my pacer was flagging or I discovered a fourteenth wind, as I decided I could go a bit faster and left the guy behind. The route took two right turns in fairly quick succession and I was fairly certain I was heading back towards the finish again. (I suppose the relative position of the sun would've been a bigger clue, but at this point such intelligent thoughts were beyond me.) In the shade of the marina, a nice cool breeze lowering my temperature nicely, I whipped off my sodden head ruff and stuffed it into my pocket. My rough calculations had me still on course for around a 2 hour finish - the 2 hour pacers I kept up with up and down the hill had disappeared in the distance, but my estimations still had me on for a good time. 

I wanted to give myself every possible boost I could and delved into my pocket for some jelly babies. Pulling out the bag I was surprised that I only had two left - had I really been ploughing through them without realising? Delving deeper, passing my sweaty head ruff, I realised that they were tumbling around loose. Slightly disgusted I contemplated going without before reasoning that any additional liquid would be good rehydration, especially if they included bonus sodium crystals. 

Apologies if you're reading this while you're eating anything.

A triple header of Chvrches tracks kept me motivated through an intricate course around the Sovereign Harbour - I think I've now seen it from every angle barring underwater - and I passed the eleven mile marker at around 1 hour and 40 minutes down. Just over two miles to go, twenty minutes to get sub-2, I'd need to pick up the pace slightly but it was possible. The opening drum roll of Born To Run filled my ears and I grabbed a bottle of water to cool me off from the final water point. There was a slight gradient up to the promenade but then it was all flat from here. I chuntered along, grimly focused on the leisure centre by the finish line, gradually reeling it in. I tucked in behind a broader gentleman to deflect the wind at mile 12 to give Dana an ETA for finishing. Spotify did its best to keep my pace up, the shuffle supplying two songs from Master Of Puppets and Black Sabbath's Paranoid to keep my blood pumping.

The final 500 metres of the Eastbourne Half Marathon course features a flat straight road, a slope down to a pedestrian subway, an echoey tunnel under said road, a slope back up to the road, a sharp right angle and a grassy finishing chute to the line. Not ideal for a sprint finish but I motored past my windbreak and gave it my best. I was expecting to see Dana at the finish line (somewhere in the crowds) so she caught me by surprise at the 500 metre marker, snapping away.

A lone runner

I wasn't sure how much time I'd lost in the earlier technical faffing but estimated it to be around 3 to 3 and a half minutes. Checking my watch I saw it was going to be close to finish below two hours but went for it anyway. Turning the right hand bend to the finish line I could see the clock showing 02:01:40 something. I knew I hadn't crossed the start line just as the clock started, but doubted that I'd taken two minutes to start. Sub two hours was gone, but barring a catastrophic collapse - I was fairly certain I could crawl over the line in time - I was going to get a new PB. I decided to make future James's PB attempts a little bit harder and carried on my pace rather than ease up.

Note the clock behind me

I crossed the line, grabbed a medal from a youthful volunteer (almost barrelling into the poor little mite and knocking him over), and stumbled to an open space. Dana had caught up with me fast enough to take pictures and found me napping peacefully a few metres from the finish line. I'd run my furthest distance since last year's aborted marathon attempt, and barring a slight stiffness early on when attacking Beachy Head, my knee hadn't whispered a peep of a complaint. I had earned my post run banana and non-alcoholic beer!

Was I disappointed that I didn't get under two hours? Yes, briefly. But when the blood returned to my brain and I could think rationally, I saw the positives of yesterday's run. I took nearly seventeen minutes (16 minutes 49 seconds) off my previous PB for that distance, which was on a mostly flat course to boot. I'd done a long run with poor preparation on unfamiliar roads with no detriment. And I left everything out there - there was no point looking back on the race where I thought "oh, if only I hadn't slowed to catch my breath/posed for a photo/stopped for a pint, maybe I'd have done better". There was no way I could have physically gone any faster. I'm proud of my chip time of 2 hours, 1 minute and 13 seconds. 

I can very probably beat that at the rescheduled Worthing Half this autumn. It's a flatter course, I'll have an extra half a year to get fitter, and I'm confident of shaving 74 seconds off my time to get below two hours. For now though, the most important part is that I beat my brother's time at Eastbourne when he ran it!