Southampton Half Marathon 2015

[stug76]

This was my first half marathon and my official chip time was 01:54:59 which as a first attempt and a veteran male of 42 years old I am very happy with. It was great to see the people of Southampton come out to watch and support everyone and I really hope this event continues and becomes a huge success.

 

I am not sure what other people who took part thought but I had a couple of points I think need improving. There was a bottle neck in the ocean village area which was so early on in the race it ground everyone to a complete halt. As I said this was my first event but my experience in the finishing funnel was awful, there was not enough space, it was very disorganized and was the last thing you needed after completing 13.1 miles.

 

Pretty much sums up my experience word for word, albiet I'm a sprightly 41 and finished a couple of minutes behind you! Being My first event of this size it was interesting to hear others comment that the support was good around the route. As I remember it there was people most of the way round, Burgess road offered some welcome encouragement at a time when I was feeling like I was going backwards!

 

I hadn't enjoyed the training, but the day more than made up for it and I'm looking at doing the Bristol half later on in the year which I didn't think would happen.

[HedgeEnder]

Did 1:50 which beat my previous pb by 4 mins so well chuffed. Support around the course was great especially through Riverside Park. Course was much tougher than I expected (even though familiar with the route) and the Ocean Village bottle neck was a pain. Confident the organisers will sort out any minor wrinkles next year and can see this becoming a top class race in the future.