Fairland's Valley Marathon - Brief Post Race Report

Well, I've been a little slack on updating my blog over the last few weeks and also suffering slightly with a lack of motivation with regards to training.  I'm blaming Glastonbury and the warmer weather.  I'm hoping that today's marathon will give me the boost to get back on track with both.

This will just be a quick update.  I hope to write more later in the week.  Today's race was the Fairland's Valley Marathon, which started and finished in Stevenage.  I didn't have great expectations for either my time or the relative beauty of the course.  Stevenage isn't the most inspiring place on Earth.  However, I had my scepticism squashed soon into the run.  The countryside around Stevenage is varied and stunning.  Perhaps not quite Lake District stunning, but very nice none the less.  We ran through a good mix of woodland, country estates and meandering river valleys.  Given that it's only about a 45 to 50 minute drive from home, this is definitely a marathon that I'd do again, and which I would recommend to friends.

The need to follow written instructions and self navigate can be a bit of a pain, and I did go wrong on two occasions.  Fortunately, I realised my mistake very quickly so it didn't cost much in terms of time.  For the majority of the race I ran in a pack with six other runners.  By the time we'd reached the final checkpoint we'd become a group of three, and over the last few miles the three of us separated as we each focused on our own personal battles to reach the finish.  Thus, Dave from South Africa finished a couple of minutes ahead of me, and Beth running her first ever marathon finished about a minute behind me.  The two of them are pictured with me below.  I think you can work out who's who.

My finishing time today was 3 hours and 44 minutes.  This needs to be verified with the official results, which I expect will be on-line tomorrow. 

For the first time this year and don't have my next race booked already.  So I really need to get on to do that.  I haven't 100% picked out my August marathon yet.  I was going to do the North Downs Marathon, but that now clashes with a friend's birthday celebration.  If I can find an alternative attractive marathon to do on a different weekend, then I'll book that.  If not, I'll stick with my original plan even though it means letting a friend down.  I doubt if my absence from the party will be noticed that much.