Newcastle Town Moor Marathon - 30th Oct

Venue: Newcastle Upon Tyne Town Moor, 30th Oct 2011
Previous marathon PB: 3.15.53 (Abingdon 2010)
Target: ‘Good for age’ time (sub 3.15) Secondary objective to go under 3.10
Background of the event:
Having only it’s 3rd outing the Town Moor marathon is a small event with previous years having 90 (2009) and then 145 (2010) finishers. The venue suggested it could be a fast course as it’s where the Newcastle Parkrun is held which is a fast course in itself so I excitedly entered and then booked my bed and breakfast (with my folks) and set about planning my training. The race is organised by the North East Veteran Athletics Club (NEVAC) and they’re organisation couldn’t be faulted at all and at only £15 entry an absolute bargain!
Training: As the race was 5 laps I made sure my long training runs were structured around doing 5 laps of varying flat distances around Cardiff bay. The longest lap being 4.5 miles which meant my biggest training runs were 22.5 miles. So by the time race day dawned having to do 5 laps was merely standard routine.
Race Day: The venue, namely the Town Moor is a 350 acre patch of common park land that is within metres of the city centre (which is sometimes quite surreal as farmers graze their cattle (by law up to 800 at a time) on the land) and yet very green and open to the elements particularly wind so I was pleased on the morning to see calm and mild conditions although the forecast had suggested the wind would get up to 20mph Westerly by midday (and for once unfortunately the weatherman was right).
The Course:Being a 5 lapper (each lap was approx 5.25 miles). Organisers provided 2 feed stations (one at the start/finish point and a 2nd at half lap point.
I’ve attached the ‘Hi-Tech’ course map provided by the event, which included:
mile 1 = flat and easy
mile 2 = slight incline and into a headwind (which got strong on laps 4 and 5)
mile 3 = flat and easy
mile 4 = included a 400m incline (and then decline) on a dirt trail
mile 5 = flat back to the start/finish into a headwind.
Miles 6-26.2 repeat.
The Race: I reckoned, based on training I might be able to do around 3hr 10mins (depending on the course) so set my Garmin at 7.15/mile. Targets to hit were:
|
Target time (hr/min/secs) |
Actual time |
5 mile split (min/sec) |
Race Position |
5 miles |
0.36.14 |
0.36.05 |
36.05 |
30th |
10 miles |
1.12.27 |
1.12.13 |
36.08 |
29th |
13.1 miles |
1.35.00 |
1.34.56 |
|
|
15 miles |
1.48.41 |
1.48.12 |
35.59 |
28th |
20 miles |
2.24.54 |
2.25.09 |
36.57 |
20th |
25 miles |
3.01.08 |
3.03.22 |
38.13 |
|
26.2 miles |
3.10.00 |
3.13.11 |
|
13th |
One advantage of being a multi lapper was that I could have a mate hand me feed bottles of my choice every lap, which is what happened.
First lap I wanted to see what the lap involved therefore made sure I stuck to my plan whilst quite a few sped off past me into the distance. Laps 2 and 3 I stuck to the task and gradually moved past a few. Starting lap 4 I was still maintaining my pace and feeling pretty good however the wind had picked up and we now found ourselves doing about 2 miles per lap into a strengthening headwind. Also by lap 4 we’d started to lap the runners towards the back of the field and therefore it got more difficult to be sure whether you were lapping or genuinely making up a position. However I was sure I’d made up several places on lap 4 and reckoned I was now lying about 20th.
The final lap dawned, the wind had picked up proper and several runners were throwing in the towel! I guess as it was a multi-lapper we were never far from a warm café with hot drinks and warm, dry clothes so the temptation to pull out must have been greater than in a standard point to point marathon. Anyhow I could feel my pace slipping but still seemed to be getting past runners fairly regularly. Once past one runner I was quick to look ahead to see the next target, however on entering the final mile which included a ¾ mile long straight flat path I could only see the white dot of a running vest way in the distance so reckoned that was it as they had a good half mile lead over me. So on meandering through some twisty paths in the final few metres imagine my surprise to be confronted by a runner about 30 metres ahead who seemed to have slowed (so much so I assumed they were about to start their 5th lap) to a crawl! It quickly dawned that he was in fact in 12th place as the marshals guided him towards the finishing side of the path. Unfortunately we were in the final 50 metres of the race and he put a final spurt on enough to prevent me from catching him and subsequently beat me by 5 seconds. Oh well I reckoned, nowt I could do although when the awards were presented I added a few more expletives when I realised he was in my age category and had grabbed the 3rd place trophy and very nice they were to!
The men’s race was won in 2.55 and the women’s race in 3.25. The field had a high percentage of veteran runners with 103 of the 127 finishers being vets (the oldest in the 75-79 age category). Results don’t show how many dropped out although entries numbered 202.
Overall Conclusion: The Newcastle Town Moor marathon is a very friendly, cheap (only £15), intimate flat event with a definite PB potential (I proved that). Organisation by the NEVAC was excellent and the support from the marshals was superb. Trophies were handed out for overall 1st, 2nd and 3rd and also for every 5-year age category above 35 to 1st, 2nd and 3rd in male and female.
Getting to Newcastle is pretty easy with flights from Bristol costing about £60 return (flying from Cardiff is a lot more expensive). You’ll be spoiled for places to stay as the venue is virtually in the city centre so is within 5 minutes walking distance of many B&B’s. If using a car parking is free and again is within 1 minutes walk of the venue.
(You Tube video link attached for ‘part 1’ of the event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS1XHvT_d0A
Dave Proud