Yesterday I ran the Edinburgh Marathon, you can see the results here. One of the good things about these results is that they give split timings at the 10k and half-marathon distances as well as the full marathon. My split timings pretty much tell the story of my race: 58 mins 16 sec for the 10k distance (faster than the Glasgow 10k race I did in September 2007) and 2 hrs 15 mins for the half-marathon distance (not too far behind my time for the Glasgow half-marathon I did in September 2008). These are all great times for me, and I felt really good whilst running. Then it all turned in to a bit of a nightmare.
The whole of the UK is currently having a heatwave, and the temperatures on the race yesterday were very uncomfortable. After the half-marathon distance at about 11am, the day began to heat up and I started to suffer and was forced to walk for long stretches. I ended up finishing way after my target time of 5 hrs for the race.
I finished pretty near the back, 7276th out of 8257 with a time of 5 hrs 24 mins but according to the race website there were 12,000 runners in the Marathon so I think huge numbers of people didn’t even finish. This is not very surprising, there were a lot of runners reduced to walking, and quite a few people who needed medical assistance. I think if I’d really pushed myself and kept running, I’d have probably ended up in an ambulance too.
Anonymous
I admit that whilst lounging in my back garden yesterday morning I did consider that anyone running a marathon in that weather deserves to end up in an ambulance.
But, well done.
Now, where’s my copy of the Darwin Awards?
Eddie
Report from the Edinburgh Evening News about the race:
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/latestnews/Heat-is-on-as-17000.5320722.jp
“A total of 8,260 runners completed the marathon, out of 13,104 entrants” – this means that just 63% of the non-relay runners even finished the race – a pretty shocking statistic…
Eddie
More fuss about the marathon on the BBC news website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8077741.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8079953.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8100488.stm
I was lucky enough to get all the liquid I needed during the race but the organisation as a whole was pretty poor, especially the finish at Musselburgh race course – the last thing you need after running a marathon is to be wondering around totally lost in crowds and having to scale large fences just to get out – this was my experience.
The Glasgow half-marathon I did in September last year was much better organised, and had twice as many runners. Edinburgh looks bad in comparison.
Eddie
Dodgy photos of me running the marathon can be seen here:
http://www4.marathon-photos.com/scripts/event_entry.py?event=Sports/CPUK/2009/Edinburgh%20Marathon&match=8790
Eddie
I forgot to mention that I also raised £155 for the Army Benevolent Fund when I ran.
You can see my fundraising web page here:
http://www.justgiving.com/edwardboyle
mum
well done your sponsorship money keeps going up! I am very proud of you
Bernhard
Bloody well done Eddie!
I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to run a marathon. You must have put some serious training in.
Martin
At least you went for it – I just stood at the finish line this year with a pathetic excuse of a knee twinge for an injury.
Good start, never mind about it all going to pot at the end; part of that was definitely down to the lack of water. 2:15 at halfway is decent, and now that you’ve done one you can always do it again….
Go on, go on go on go on…