The Other Side

I have never been to spectate a road race, so what better event to start with than the London Marathon?

With the RAF's Ben Livesey lining up on the elite start line, and a number of the ladies from all 3 servicees battling it out to duck under the golden 3 hour mark, it was set to be a spectacular race. Notwithstanding it was the debut marathon on Mo Farah and Chris Thompson. 3 new course records, a world record, and record numbers of spectators - not bad eh?

We went to Tower Hill to watch the action which meant we saw the athletes twice. Once just before mile 13 and just after mile 20 going in the other direction.

The first athletes past were the wheelchairs. seeing them in person you get a much better sense of how excruciatingly difficult it must be to power yourself along for 26.2 miles by your arms only. Watching on TV it always seems quite effortless. But then again, so does running! 

Next came the IPC athletes and the support was amazing. The crowd were going mental anytime someone went past and the athletes were loving it! This year was the first time the IPC event has been held in London.The women were next to come past - at incredible speed! It was almost impossible to get a photograph of them!

The main event was the elite men. The first few runners came through still with the pace makers and looking incredibly fresh. Then when Mo Farah came past the roar of the crowd was incredible. When they came back around the 20 mile mark, the masses were passing on the other side. Runners stopped and clapped as Mo came past. 

It was incredibly exciting to see Ben running amazingly, truly inspirational. We were going crazy as every RAF athlete came past. After a quick start - 15m26 for the first 5k (we were tracking him online) the next  25k with even 5k splits of 16m05s, 16m18s, 16m04s, 15m59s and 16m26s. The English International led the RAF to clean sweep in the Inter Service team competition. Livesey's time of 2h17m44s was outside the Commonwealth and European qualification mark by 44 seconds! He finished in 17th position overall. 

In the women’s race Flt Lt Tamsyn Rutter ran a brilliant race and finished in 2h58m55s - a time that would see her win both the RAF and Inter Service gold medals. .

I will definately be back to the Marathon, and definately not to run. As inspirational as all the incredible performances were, they did not make me want to run 42km!

Fleet Half Marathon

As well as being touted as the ‘pre London half marathon’ the Fleet half is also the inter-services half marathon championships. It is one of the longest-running half marathons in the UK, now in its 33rd year. A great course for runners, gently undulating course with good chance to achieve your personal best time, traffic-free so no dodging traffic or waiting at junctions. There is also LOADS of supporters en route, and the race is really well supported by the local people which is really nice to see.

A founder member of the British Association of Road Races. The host club, Fleet & Crookham AC, can help you train for the event  if you are local to the area and this year the race is supporting Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research. Supporter of The Matthew Elvidge Trust.

My day started pretty early with a coffee and my standard race day breakfast of oats and peanut butter. We arrived in Fleet in good time, and scurried off to find the port-a-loos. And - HURRAY there were loads of them for once. Still some pretty big queues though. 

The race got under way at 1030, and it was already beginning to hot up. I had forgotten how amazing the crowd are through the centre of town, and I was quite looking forward to the second lap (maybe a little sadistic). The route wound its way through the Hampshire countryside (all staying on road), with a VERY welcome crowd at around 10 miles.

I personally had a brilliant race, finishing in 1:21:10, and the RAF and Inter-Service Champion. Never have I been happier to see the finish line! The RAF Ladies all had fantastic races and we took away overall team gold, and Inter-Service team gold too. 

After the race there was a lot of stalls and tents offering things to whet your appetite. Being such a glorious day the ice cream van was getting a lot of attention.

I could not say thank you enough to all the wonderful supporters, and the fantastic organisation of the race.

Here is the RAF report on the race so far.