By Chris Le Beau
This year saw the 28th staging of the Paddock Wood Half Marathon, a popular event for those in the final phase of training for spring marathons. This was not however of relevance to the two Seaford Striders who took part, Phil Robinson and myself.
Having been pleased with my Hastings Half time, I was tempted by the prospect of a flatter course offering the chance of an improved time. Also, I felt it might make the Haywards Heath 10 mile race at the end of April seem relatively easy. Plus, I decided to keep Sue (Garner) company, running this time for Lingfield, in preparation for the London Marathon.
The race HQ was a pop-up arrangement spread out on an industrial estate. With 2,000+ runners, there was a good chance it would be chaotic, and so it was. Some additional signage would have been useful, and you can never have too many toilets! Parking arrangements were some distance from the base and with the roads clogged it looked as if we might have a delayed start. Not so, we set off on time and you had to feel sorry for the late arrivals, a steady stream of runners, with numbers attached, running against the flow for the first half mile, just to get to the start line; the stuff of nightmares.
The course headed out of town and into the countryside, along leafy lanes and past farmland in the spring sunshine, with some attractive looking pubs along the way. It was a warm morning but there were well managed water tables and sponges at sensible intervals.
As promised, the course was indeed fairly flat. I even had the illusion that a lot of it was gently downhill. A consistent pace was much easier to hold than on certain other Half Marathons and at ten miles I was still thinking I might crack two hours. Sadly, at eleven miles, that started to seem like another illusion, finally confirmed on mile 13, when the legs protested just as everyone else’s appeared to gear up for the final run in.
Daniel Gaffney of South London Harriers showed just how fast this course is, winning in a time of 1.08.36. First lady home, for the second year in a row, was Tracy Barlow of Thames Valley Harriers, in 1.14.07.
Phil had good reason to be happy with his time, finishing 416th of 2164 runners with a chip time of 1.35.34. This was Phil’s best half marathon time in the past year, an impressive effort with his busy lifestyle! My chip time was 2.02.25, and although the elusive 2 hours was beyond me, I take consolation in the fact that 767 finished behind me! Sue had no problem with the 2-hour factor, coming home in 1.56.35.
While the HQ set up could be improved, the race was well marshalled and road closures for the start and finish well managed. This year the race supported the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance, so, any Striders keen to run three minutes faster than their Hastings Half time and support a worthy cause might well want to give this well-established event consideration in future years.