2005. 21st place 56 minutes 27 secs.
A proper injury finally stopped me in my tracks in 2005. The glory days were behind me and I would never run as fast again. But that didn't stop me trying.....
The injury was with me in March, but I didn't know what it was until May. Until then I had simply been missing lots of running and enduring pain when I did run. The 8 week layoff I was then advised to take to let my injury clear up was at least partly helped by the fact it was by then summertime and I could ride my bike to try to keep fit. The day the 8 weeks was over I had entered 25 mile Time Trial and managed to slip inside the hour by a handful of seconds. Immediately afterwards I ran up Skiddaw in celebration (and painfully hobbled back down as it was really still quite sore).
Once I was back into full running and training mode it was a case of damage limitation and a 56 was a fair result given the previous 6 months of interrupted training. Plucky beat me this year, by two seconds!
Mike Scott took a second victory with 52.22 and in 7th place was a certain Mr R Lightfoot with 53:42. Very good Ricky, but not quite up to my standard yet.
2005 result CLICK
2006. 30th place 57 minutes 08 secs.
My overriding memory of the 2006 race was the competition with Plucky. In the end he beat me by 2 seconds (yes, again).
It's obvious from the result that neither of us was fighting fit at that stage, but we were certainly well matched and ran the entire 10 miles together. In the 2007 London Marathon magazine there is a superb full page colour photo of the two of us running past the pub in Crosby on Eden. We didn't know the photo was to be used and were both delighted to discover it, in London, as we were flicking through the mag' after we had picked it up with our number at the Expo.
Its perhaps no surprise that Plucky outsprinted me. He is a year younger after all. Not so much more to say about 2006.
2006 result CLICK
2007. 35th place 58 minutes 32 secs.
I'm not sure why I didn't do better in 2007 really. It was , after all, the year I ran a 2:43 Dublin marathon and won Langdale marathon. Perhaps those both being in Autumn meant I then eased right off training, or perhaps I had had more illness. Whatever. It was a nondescript result and would immediately be glossed over if not for the fact that I can also remember this being the year young Graham Milly was keen to do well.....
I said I would do everything I could to help him to a fast time. I remember front running as hard as I could manage whilst ensuring Milly was safely tucked into the group. This was a tactic I knew would see me blow apart and get dropped. That is exactly what happened but Milly got his pb (58.16), so all was good.
Plucky remained very consistent with 56.08 and a certain Mr Marcus Scotney popped up in 10th place with 54.59. Ricky matched exactly my pb of 53.07 this year. So in 2007 the now World Champion was only as fast as Steve Angus (had been 3 years earlier)
2007 result CLICK
2008. 81st place 1hour 4 minutes 5 seconds.
WHAT ON EARTH WAS I PLAYING AT?!
I know exactly what happened in 2008..... I didn't do any training!
Well, I didn't do any training in the week and on a weekend I usually ran about 20 miles.
So when in the April I ran 3hrs and seconds in the London Marathon and decided that if I could run 3hr marathons without training properly I would just settle for that and enjoy all the extra free time not training provided me with.
But then in New York, (2 weeks prior to B2C) I ran to halfway in 1:29:59 but then took 2HOURS to complete the rest of the marathon.
"No Steve, you can't be a 3hr hour marathoner unless you train a bit harder than 20 miles once per week"
It was too late to do anything decent at Brampton and that's why I took so long to run it. I think it must also have been a really slow day for the race because only 33 people beat the hour (its usually about 60-70) and Ricky won in 53:29, which still put him after me in the all time list.
Plucky ran a 57 and Milly a 59
2008 result CLICK
2009. 29th place 53 minutes 3 seconds.
What a year! everyone ran fast. 145 under the hour!
The course was short due to flooding.
The results say it was 0.7 miles short of 10. If this is correct then Plucky and George Thompson ran times equal to sub 55 minutes. With respect to those two - that seems unlikely, so maybe it was actually shorter than 9.3.
In no doubt though is that I ran about 2 mins slower than Plucky, so not a very good run by me.
I had spent the year since B2C 2008 training hard and most importantly, training regularly and had then been pleased to run well inside 3 hours at Boston Marathon. Things were slowly picking back up and I have Milly to thank for training with me almost daily throughout this time.
2009 result CLICK
2010. 103rd place 1hour 4 minute 40 secs
It is probably unfair to include 2010 in a chapter entitled Wilderness Years, because I sustained another injury which saw me forced out for 8 weeks (stress fracture, same injury as 2005 but in other leg this time). And in the same vein it might also be unfair to have included 2005 too. But only the recorded times will be my judge and jury when I am 90 and by then looking back on 60 Bramptons.
I suppose I have actually been very lucky with injury and illness in relation to the B2C in that none of the problems shave stopped me running it.
This years race fell about two weeks after my 8 week layoff had ended. I had resumed running only very gradually and on grass mainly. I'd probably ran 5 times and got up to about 6 miles. Running 10 on tarmac was therefore quite inadvisable really and more than a little bit risky. But by this time I had long since noticed my appearance n the result sheet was a very long consecutive one and I wanted that to continue.
The first 5 miles of the race were fine - running at about 61/62 pace. But then things got tough and I dropped off the pace and struggled home. The injury wasn't exacerbated and I was able to continue my mini comeback.
In 2010 Ricky Lightfoot finally got that monkey off his back and moved ahead of me in the all time list with his 52.08 (3rd). And Graham Milly recorded a superb new pb of 56.53 (17th)
2010 result CLICK
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