A week ago we had a long overdue catch-up with friends Alan and Kim when they came to see us. After a pleasant walk along the sea wall to see our new lifeboat station we went back home for dinner (cooked by James! – surprise or what!).
On our return we found squatters in the back garden!
The weekend of the 8th / 9th April was the Brighton Marathon and our daughter Vicki, and her partner Ian, came to stay with us as they were due take part. After getting to our designated park and ride venue at 7 o’ clock Sunday morning we found we had to walk a mile to board the buses! On the way we popped into the Brighton and Hove Albion stadium for a wee-stop. James has never seen inside a football stadium before!
At Preston Park we met up with Vicki and Ian’s friends Fiona and Robbie. Here’s James (who was not running), Vicki (who was to run the marathon but she developed ankle problems and has deferred until next year), Fiona (running the 10k), Ian (running the 10k) and “Ironman” Robbie (running the marathon).
The 10k race started at 8:30 and Fiona and Ian are about to go through their respective ‘start gates’ – red and blue.
The crowds in Preston Park were quite amazing!
Ready, steady ……..
…….. go!!!
We managed to spot Ian, who was well towards the front of the ‘red’ group who started first …….
……. and, not long after, the ‘blue’ runners started to come through with Fiona looking very buoyant!
Vicki, Doug and James took a brisk walk through the town towards the finishing line at the seafront and were able to see some of the 10k runners (on their much more tortuous route to the finish!)
The iconic Royal Pavilion looked glorious in the morning sunshine.
We managed to get as close as we could to the finishing line just before Ian came past. With just 100 yards to the finish he had a very respectable time under his belt.
Here are the lovely couple reunited after Ian had collected his medal. Well done Ian!
For James it was also very tiring work watching all these people running around! Joking aside, at the end of the day, Vicki’s fancy wrist watch cum ‘everything medical, physical and sporty’ said that we’d actually walked over 10 miles!
After Ian and Fiona finished we were able to watch the marathon runners (who started at 9:15am) at various points along the route. Here’s a very fit Robbie (who’s seems to have enough energy to lark around as well!) coming along the seafront before heading off to Portslade and back!
After seeing Robbie off on his way to Portslade we all went to a café in St James Street for breakfast and it was there that we were able to get close up with some of the 20,000 marathon runners.
Some sporting some weighty outfits! ……..
…… and some entrants putting the rest of us to great shame!
It was a great surprise to find a couple of our cruise friends (all the way from Ipswich) also in town. We joined Darren, who’s wife Jen was running in the marathon, and his friend Tracey for drink while all the others were pounding the streets!
Here are some views of the seafront, the crowds and the runners.
It turned out to be an amazing day of excitement and success for Ian, Fiona and Robbie, who all returned amazingly good times. Vicki was disappointed not to have been able to enter but there’ll be other marathons and, of course, Brighton next year. It was a great day to remember.
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