Race Report: Potteries Marathon 05/07/2015

You’ll have run a marathon already. You’ll already be marathon fit, it won’t feel that hard. Why not just enter it?”

Outside the Britannia Stadium raring to go

Or at least that was the advice from some ‘friends’ in the Striders earlier in the year, trying to talk me into joining the first Potteries marathon for twelve years. A few months later, and two months after the London marathon, I’d entered it but I was seriously doubting their advice. The training for London felt a long time ago, and I definitely hadn’t trained for heat. Seven Striders were on the start list but unfortunately only three had been able to make it on the day. So it was me, Heather and Fran who met up at the Britannia stadium. The stadium with enough capacity for 30,000 fans was open for about 1000 runners, so the facilities at the start were probably the best of any race I’ve ever been to.

Fran after 1 mile with a very understated wave to the camera

After a quick chat about race tactics, Heather & I agreed to set off at about the same pace, making sure we did nothing faster than 8 minute miles at the start and hoping to get around in 3½ – 3¾ hours. That seemed a realistic target for both of us considering the hills and the weather, which was cloudy but threatening to get hot. We had the normal call to the start line with 5 minutes to go, then a quick welcome talk and it was off.

The start of the route was out onto closed roads through an industrial estate, which was ideal for thinning the field of runners out. A mile later there was plenty of space to run in, it felt so easy, my Garmin was telling me that we’d done the first mile in 7½ minutes, I was running at 7 minute mile pace and Heather was leaving me behind! We slowed down as soon as we realised what we were doing; it’s always too easy to start quickly in a long race. Pacing became quite difficult even with a Garmin, there were a lot of hills so keeping a constant pace was impossible.

15 miles in and we’re still smiling

After the first few miles the route was almost all on residential side streets, with a few ramps up and down footbridges and underpasses to cross the big main roads. The roads weren’t closed, but there were plenty of marshals to direct us and stop the traffic to let runners cross. It was also well supported by people standing outside their houses, and very well supported at the relay changeover points. After about 8 miles we came out onto the Potters ‘Arf route and followed it for a while, it was a slight relief to be on a route which I recognised. It was still undulating, but at least the organisers had been kind enough to leave out the two worst hills of the Potters ‘Arf. We would have hit the dreaded ‘Heartbreak Hill’ on 13 miles but turned off with about 200 yards to go! Heather & I weren’t quite running together but we never got far apart & met up again at around 14 miles. We still hadn’t slowed to 8 minute miles so I was getting nervous about the last bit. 

What a lousy jazz hands pose!

After that – what can you say about the last 10 miles of a marathon? The route went through the pottery centres of Burslem and Middleport, then through the pedestrianised centre of Newcastle-under-Lyme, where the pubs were open with tables outside and there was plenty of local support. After that it was just more miles of residential streets and park footpaths. When we got to 20 miles one of the marshals told Heather that she was the 8^th placed woman. That really gave her a boost, and within a few miles she was up to 6^th. At 23 miles there was a very long drag up the hill behind the N Staffs hospital (the last thing you need there) followed by a very steep drop down the other side. The steep downhill stretch didn’t help the tired legs at all, but at least we could see the Britannia stadium, less than a mile away. And we managed to run all the way, passing a lot of runners who had stopped to walk.

Twenty miles in.

Finally the route went back over the D road near the Michelin works and onto the footpaths leading up to the finish. There was a very steep climb in the last 100 yards to the finish line, but it was crowded with cheering spectators which got rid of any temptation to walk. Heather caught me up at the top of the hill, and we crossed the line together in just over 3h25, only a minute slower than my London time and easily a PB for Heather. We then had half an hour waiting in the sun before Fran came in, just under 4 hours.

Less than a mile to go!

All in all an exhausting morning out with the heat and the hills, but faster than I expected, my legs hadn’t completely seized up by the end, and they recovered much more quickly than I expected. Maybe the advice about running 2 marathons in as many months wasn’t so crazy!

All finished!

For more information visit the race website.

Thanks to Bryan Dale for the photographs.

Martin C.