Portsmouth Coastal Marathon 2013
I was introduced to the Portsmouth Coastal Marathon on a damp night in February in a wine bar, surrounded by all my friends who had travelled to spend my 40th Birthday with me. Gaz decided that it was something I needed, a goal perhaps to keep me focused. He maybe saw something in me that at this stage I did not. He also said he would run it with me. This was the first race we had run together since we ran the Lakeland 50. The training for this went pretty much the same as every marathon I had done to date, though this was my first trail marathon. The race follows the harbour path from Southsea round to Haling Island and back again. It's actually mostly a really scenic route, except the few miles that run adjacent to the M27. Even with a total lack of training, and (this being a winter race), the driving wind and rain, I did finish. Just under 5 hours. Alarm bells were starting to sound - was marathon running for me?
Nowadays, I actually know how to analyse my performance, which in all honesty I never used to do. Did I finish, and was I roughly in the top half, were the only two questions I asked myself. Up until now, both of those were true. There had been a number of Great South Runs too in this period, a few 5 ks and a couple of half marathons. Completing these were all relatively easy - after all, I was a runner? It was at this point I now questioned if that was true. I still didn't see myself as overweight or fat. Big? Yes, absolutely, but not overweight.
Anyway, I'd finished. Gaz was far fresher than me at the end. He had again been bounding around and actually had to push me quite hard in the end. This was considerably slower than any marathon I had done before, but I put it down to the fact it was on trail. There was virtually zero elevation gain, so it wasn't down to that at all.