Danny Wilson Reports: I entered this race at the start of July hoping to get in a few good weekends of long runs but circumstances over the summer didn’t allow this to go to plan at all. As I couldn’t swap to the half marathon which ran earlier in the day I thought I would try and do a get me around sort of pace and this worked fine up to and beyond the first 13 miles. Sadly it didn’t go quite to plan after that point and I jogged home in my slowest marathon to date. It just shows the training or lack of it will find you out in a marathon.
It’s a nice event though and was a pretty perfect day with some sun, not too much wind and not too hot. The event starts near the Bournemouth football ground at Dean Park and then goes east to Hengistbury Head and the first of several about turns to go back down the coast towards Boscombe staying above the beach before another about turn and then down to the promenade. The route continues like this working its way back to Bournemouth proper and beyond to Sandbanks before a final return along the promenade to the finish in front of Bournemouth pier. As the route has a few trips up the cliffs to get onto the roads and paths above the beach its a bit hillier than you might expect.
You get to run down the lengths of both Boscombe and Bournemouth piers as a treat. There are also 5K and 10K events on the Saturday so there are plenty of runners about over the whole weekend.
Full Results HERE