Shrewsbury Marathon

Well just got back from a camping weekend just outside Shrewsbury. The aim was to enter a fairly flatish fastish road marathon to try to qualify for London Marathon next year. They have recently changed the GFA criteria so it means completing the race in 3:05 now rather than the 3:10 that it historically has been.

The caveat in favour of the organisers was that this was the first time that they had run the event. That is actually the only positive thing I can say about the race! The race although advertised as flat was anything but.

It was a cold drizzly day and they held us on the start line for 20 minutes, getting colder and colder. Most people were shivering and a lot of abuse was starting to be hurled in the direction of the organisers tent. Essentially the called everyone to the start before they were ready and then decided to clear the course when they realised they weren't ready. Muppets.

This was a 4 lap course with a half marathon started after the main race. This lead to absolute confusion and congestion out on the route as they had decided to make the course so tight in places that at some points you could only run 2 abreast. Great when you were catching the half marathoners. The feedback provided by most people on runners world says it all. The so called and self proclaimed 'experienced events company' managed to balls up pretty much everything.

Due to the above I reluctantly finished in 3:06:12. 72 seconds off qualifying. Still I had a nice weekend camping with the family so not all bad. It also was good to test how training was going with a road run.