So the usual April Marathon season has suddenly moved to the Autumn.
First Paris postponed and as Brighton offered places to those with places in Paris, I took that up. Then yesterday both Brighton & London postponed until September & October.
Back in Feb., I booked a Good-for-Age place on Edinburgh Marathon originally due to take place in May : That too is also now postponed but with no date set.
So September/October looks now set to be Marathon time ! Meanwhile I have decided not to run the Milton Keynes 20 mile tomorrow in part due to Covid-19 but also to avoid aggravating my thigh injury which is still in recovery.
I have been suffering with some sort of a hamstring & glute injury since Christmas : Hence the limited running as would have been obvious from my Strava feed. Runs have been few and no more than 5 miles : Not what is wanted with April/May Marathons in prospect.
But today it was a relief to be able to tun a longish run out down to the canal, around Victoria Park & on to Stratford. Not pain free but also I could run, unlike the earlier part of the year.
I hope that Marathons go ahead but fear that they will be curtailed & limited to elite runners only as happened in Tokyo.
Firenze Marathon would like to communicate that due to a gas leak at km 40 along the race route of today’s marathon, in order participants’ safety, in agreement with local police and firefighters it was necessary to make a slight change to the route. Exactly 600 meters were ‘cut’ near Via Lungarno Vespucci and was blocked after the first 60 runners therefore all qualifications at the national and international level will need to be approved by the Italian Athletics Federation.
As usual good conditions for Marathon running although warmer than in previous years.
I don’t know if this time will be accepted as a marathon course time as the route was affected by a gas leak …. I think the actual distance was a little short of 26.2 miles but there’s been no official mention of this.
I was expecting tough and that was what I got !
I expected the bridges – Queensboro was the hardest even though the Verrezzano Narrows was the biggest climb, but being at the start it was fine. However I hadn’t reckoned on the 1+ mile long drag uphill around 23-24 miles : The combination of what it was and where it was, made it pure evil ! I had been going for a modest 4 hours and was roughly on schedule until that point. I lost 1 min/mile from mile 23 so was just outside my time.
What is it about US Marathons that require such an early start ? I had to get to the pickup point in mid town New York @5.30 am but fortunately being still mostly on GMT this made it more like 10.30am, a relative lie in. However arriving to the start area @7.00 am for a 10.10am start wasn’t fun : It may have been sunny but it was cold with a stiff breeze. It would have been terrible had it been raining as there was no shelter.
And then of course there was the long march … that being the long slog that the organisers make all runners do after the finish. Instead of being kind, giving you near immediate access to bag collection so that you can leave, there is either a mile walk for those who opted out of leaving a bag at the start for collection at the finish, to collect an official NYC Poncho or a 2 mile walk to collect your bag. Only once you’ve completed your walk, are you then ‘free’ to leave by an exit that is almost certainly the furthest point in Central Park from your chosen accommodation or the subway line you need …. Come on organisers there was no need for this ! No other major US or European marathon inflict this on their runners.
Cold – ‘feels like temp’ of -1 degrees – but otherwise reasonable running conditions. Had this been a UK race of lesser importance, I would have deferred my place having been suffering from cold/cough since the Maidenhead Half. Time was slow as was expected under the circumstances.
Good race well organised but the security restrictions were perhaps over the top.
Interesting to note that when Mo Farah was introduced at the start, he got a big cheer from all sections of the runners.
Did you know that Chicago claims to have invented the Chocolate Brownie ?? One useless fact passed on …
… Age Graded of course !!
