Chelmsford Park Marathon

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Comments

  • Keith LKeith L ✭✭✭

    Its a shame that councils/police now generally charge so much for road closures that for most races it is getting prohibitive meaning more path/parks are the way of the future. 

  • For this one, they hired a traffic company to close some roads off, so its costly. The roads in the city centre are crucial to shopping, parking. So the only way you can start and finish is in Central Park. Even park routes are a problem. Parkrun starts in Central Park and the local council gets few complaints from pedestrians moaning about 400 runners coming through.

    Redheadedraver, it will be a quiet, pleasant route through parks and a odd road or two. I think the parks will be boring because there's nothing to look at. Chelmsford doesn't have much to offer. The only good bit is its two laps there and back.

    Looking forward to tomorrow. Going to treat this as a long run. Good thing for me is I live only half a mile away from the route. So even if I want to drop out, not too far getting home.

  • I'm looking forward to it. I think it is great to have a marathon in this corner of Essex (still no Southend Marathon!) which is also easy to get to by public transport as well. Thank you Js and Chelmsford for putting it on!

    I think the route looks to be quite scenic as well, which will be nice - nothing like a good view to distract you from any pain! Grass/tarmacmix can be an issue (which shoes to wear?) so I think it would be a good idea to keep the new route next year.

    See you all tomorrow image

  • Sorry for posting this late, but the organisers have marked the course out this afternoon and I have followed the course.

    Let me say if anyone fancy a challenging marathon course with some wet slippery grass here and there, a few obstacles such as getting through gates. Its a route I'm very much use but all I will say its going to be a good one but don't expect a PB.

    Currently raining right now but all I will say to anyone running is have a great day in my home city.

  • Thanks runner-man! Mr BBC weather confidently says it will have stopped raining by the start of the raceimage

  • Well have to say, for a first-time marathon, it went pretty well. 3 hours, 27 minutes. The course despite reservations didn't prove to be a problem as I have run these routes many times before. The marshals did a excellent job and they deserve credit. The only gripe was going through Central Park for the 2nd and 3rd laps. I know the organisers had to make up for losing a bit of Hylands Park, but the 3rd lap was hard trying to past 2nd lap runners and pedestrians. Even found some runners cheating by not completing the 3rd lap.

    I think they should stick to this route. Take out the grass bits and the 2nd lap round Central Park. Very sure they can use some quiet roads to make up for distance. But all in all, pretty happy.

  • Thought that for a first go it was OK.  I made the course a little long, but that's better than it being short image

  • Did anyone else think some of the mile measurements seemed off. I think it was between mile 6 and 7 I clocked around a 14 minute mile, instead of the 9:30 pace I thought i was running at.

  • Well considering the re routing they had to do and the loops we had to do 3 times, I thought that was great! Hylands park was particularly pretty (sunshine helped), and the crowd support was excellent. Gold stars to the marshals and to whoever thought of handing out bananas and jelly babies. And I did manage a PB 4.56.23, nearly a half hour improvement on my 1st effort. my garmin measured the course at 26.62 miles. A day on my sofa today! image

     

  • I thing the marshals made some of us run further.
  • I agree with the previous comment, mile markers were spot on until the 7 mile marker and then consistently long from then on.  I feared that the second loop would increase the distance even further but it didn't.

  • The course was changed at 10.00 in the morning cutting out the waterlogged Lawford Lane, hence the delay in the start and the mile markers being out.

  • All things considered, it ran relatively smoothly for a first time event.  There's things to be improved on for next year, but hopefully being able to use the original course will help there and perhaps the council will be more accommodating, as there's clearly demand for such an event in the local area.  I did find it surprising that some people said they were wrongly directed at the fork for the finish/start of the third mini-loop - surely you know roughly what distance you've done and whether you're due to finish or not?  Mind you, I also saw someone heading the wrong way around Admiral's Park and trying to re-route someone going the right way, so who knows?

  • Lawford Lane wasn't that good when I passed Saturday afternoon.

    To be honest, if they go ahead next year which is likely, most of the course won't change. I can understand why the organisers went for this. Its a simple, off-road course with no need to close many roads, won't need to cause inconvenience to others. But I can see them adding extra roads in quiet-ish parts as long as its marshalled. I wouldn't increase on numbers if 1,900 entered and only 960 completed. They will need to improve their communication and marketing. Very poor with it came to instructions, the course map they issued was like a jigsaw puzzle. There improvement but if they repeat what they done this year, I fear it will receive a bad reputation.

  • So the organiser admitted the course was a little longer but goes on to say Garmins are not as accurate as the device the official measurer used and the course definitely was not 0.5 mile over but more 0.2 mile over.   http://www.essexchronicle.co.uk/Chelmsford-Marathon-course-long-Organisers-admit/story-23293872-detail/story.html   Regardless it was over, at least they will learn and improve for next year.
  • A couple of hundred Garmins can't all be wrong and a GPS doesn't care what surface it is used on, unlike the 'official' measurement device which does not give 'official' results once you take it off road.

    Let's be glad that 900 runners did not turn up on Sunday. If they had it would have been carnage.

  • Keith LKeith L ✭✭✭

    A couple of hundred garmins can and often are wrong. They are all using pretty much the same technology which doesnt like (among other things) 180 degree turns of which there were a number on the course.

    I doubt it would have been carnage even if more runners had turned up. But there is no major race around where 100% turn up - usual drop out is 25-30% at every major race. 

  • Garmins can indeed be wrong, but if your entire perception of distance is based upon what your Garmin has always told you, especially when training for your marathon (!), then if it says you're half a mile further on than you should be, then your mind and legs will probably believe it, just as they have for the last 16 weeks of a training schedule. That's a very long sentence ... (half a mile too long?) image

  • Garmins are never designed to be accurate. But because people rely on them, they expect them to be. OK for training but for races I would not use them.

    The local newspaper had 8 pages on last weeks marathon. The charity say they have raised £110,000 but after costs could be £80,000. I think most comes from hiring a firm to close the roads off for the day.

    The organisers blamed the weather for those not turning up with 200 runners informing them in advance. Only 60 dropped out while running.

    I know the organisers were thinking of having a half marathon along with the marathon next year but would advise against this. It will devalue the marathon. They would be better off holding a fun run for children while the marathon is on.

  • Keith LKeith L ✭✭✭

    £80K is good but not great considering all the months of work that had to go into this. But even that figure relied on a reasonable amount of sponsorship (either corporate or individual) as with 1800 places or what ever sold (that would be £60 per place)

    You can see why Charities who have them love VLM Gold Bond Places - much less effort and with say 50 runners you would get similar reward for a lot less effort.

    Not so sure about the half devaluing the marathon. I would have a question over if the course can cope with extra numbers but if they can sort that it appears to be a popular option now to run both together. Assume they need to greatly increase revenue generated it make it worthwhile for them to do it again.

  • If they hold a half and marathon, the possibility more will opt for the half which may lead to dropping the marathon altogether. I cannot see them changing the course too much. Adding a half will increase numbers but might be too much on a restrictive course.

  • Organisers admitted that the course was significantly too long, proving my point that a couple of hundred Garmins were indeed not wrong.

    On a positive note for those taking part in 2015: It was such a mess last year it can only be better this year

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