Brighton Half

Early start and still half asleep when I stumbled across the road to Brendan's house who was waiting with nephew Sean (a pro tennis player who retired last year aged 26). We then walked down Wickham Way to meet our lift Tim and his son Matt (very good rugby player and mates with Elliot Daly who made his debut for England yesterday against Ireland). Daly's first coach was actually Tim at the Beckenham club where Jack and Lucas played a bit last year. It got me thinking that I must try and get them involved again. Jack played for both league and union Manly clubs in Aus and was half decent. He will start playing again in September when he starts secondary school at Langley.

Journey down was enjoyable as Sean modestly told his stories about the Murray brothers (Jamie sponsored him £100 for today's race) and how Jeremy Bates is helping him get his Winbledon membership. There are only about 400 spots and most are ex singles winners and you need endorsement by 4 members to get in.  Sean was there playing on Tuesday and retold how the members book can be seen by all and includes the likes of Aggasi, Graf, Becker along with email and telephone numbers. Once you get the membership you can play there all year round.

Anyway back to the running. The race was extremely well organised and felt the best I have done in a long while. No knee or ankle pain and my hammy felt also fine. My stomach issues had resided so basically no excuses. At the off I settled with a group of 20 or so as we hit 3.40s whilst the course goes inland and then back to the seafront before heading east up a steady incline over the cliff front. The wind was a westerly and so it made for heavy going between 4 and 8ks. The field was deep but my rotten luck I head back down towards Brighton Pier with literally no one around me. I had let the previous group go with not having the confidence to cling on with no racing in the legs over the past year. I rolled back to Brighton just trying to keep the km average low but it kept ticking up from 3.46 to 3.48. Large crowds greeted us as we ran past the finish and then followed the coastal road east for the final loop.

At this point I managed to drag back one of the guys who had been spat out the back and shared pacing but I swear the wind had changed direction as was seemingly back in my bloody face again. We then turned (off the road and down onto the promenade) with a painful 5k to go and the Pier in full view in the distance. These 5ks seemed to go on for an eternity and was mentally choking as we ran back. Running in my Sydney Striders shirt I got a lot of 'common Sydney' yells which definitely helped but in truth my legs were toast at that point. With the finishing line in sight I pulled the final k back to 3.40 and finished in 80.35 (3.50 average).

https://www.strava.com/activities/504222741/overview

On reflection very happy as had me down before the race as a 82 min. Slowly the fitness is coming back and this time last year I ran 86 minutes for the Hastings half albeit on a slightly tougher course but this one was also pretty hilly and with wind swirling. I need to shave off another 3 minutes then I will have the confidence to take on London properly.

I then met Sean back at the tent who ran 1.28 with not having done hardly any training post retiring last year followed by Brendan who was also happy with his run. A quick change and then met J and the boys (ex Jack who was playing footie) and went for a nice lunch with Geoff (bro in law) and Michelle in the Brighton Lanes.

Train home to East Croydon and home in time to watch the cup final.