I quoted my favourite TV show when I arrived at the 2018 Eastbourne Half Marathon.  Mirroring Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor when he hadn’t seen the TARDIS since his regeneration from David Tennant, I looked at the start line and whispered “OK. What have you got for me this time?”

It had been two years since I had been at the Eastbourne Half, and although I was in Eastbourne recently for the Beachy Head Marathon, this is a different race althogether.

Registration was easy: my number had arrived in the post and the bag drop was faultless, very friendly marshals who effortlessly stored my bag in the right area.

After hanging around in a very friendly atmosphere I made my way to the start line. Here I met fellow #teamblack member Mark Reese and we stood around taking part in the group warm up. Well we started to warm up, but then after a few seconds thought we were a bit too cool for school...

The group warm up and logistics were explained, very straight forward and although there were more plugs for the local sponsors than you’d find in a bathroom showroom, the air horn went off and we were off!

I’ve always thought that this was a nice little race, very charming and a reasonable sized field in 2016, but this year felt different.  There seemed to be more on course support, more people cheering, more bands playing and more ‘oomph’! Strangely, it still managed to retain some of its charm although this time there were more bachelors and bachelorettes trying to woo us with their supportive ways.

The ground was wet and potentially slippery under feet, so we couldn’t attack the corners as much as we’d have liked, but the pace at the front of the field was steady for the first few miles.  We passed the lovely Eastbourne pier and made our way to the climb between miles 2-3.

Now, this hill is infamous, and if you’ve never done this half before you probably don’t realise how infamous.  When you reach the bottom of the hill, you need to climb, and climb, and climb.  Then when you get to the top, it levels out and then after a few more steps you can then.... climb, and climb, and climb, and climb.  The hill is a seemingly double hill! And it was at this point that the 1:30:00 pacers overtook me.

Apart from being disheartened, I decided to actually dig deep and catch them up on the downhill.  I didn’t just catch them up, I overtook them and the result of such a steep hill is a mile long steep down hill.  The time you lose is made up there, and once at the bottom we were at the seafront.

Along the seafront, we made the long run to the pier and ran underneath it.  We were around halfway, and I had lost the pacers behind me, so was able to enjoy the cheering, the bands and the outpouring of warmth from those in Eastbourne.

This is the part of the race where it starts to get a bit quiet, but it’s still lovely to run around the marina and get some humble cheers and claps by those standing on their balconies.  At this point, the sharp turns and metal bridges underfoot had me concerned that I’d lose my footing, but I managed to get through and onto the 11 mile mark.  Seeing that I would reasonably comfortably get under the 1:30:00 mark, I decided to pull it in so that I wouldn’t do myself any damage on the wet floor.  Passing some of the runners further back the field always makes me feel a bit bad that they have so far left to go, but their cheers to us nearly finishing was lovely.

We got to the 12 mile mark, looped round and under the underpass and crossed the finish line in 1:29:24.  I got my medal and although I didn’t get a goodie bag this year (grrrr) I did manage to get a lot of sweets, banana and a cracking medal (hooray!)

After the race, I got my bag easily and waited for Mark to finish.  After a few minutes, Mark met me and told me he had got a Eastbourne Half debut time of around 1:55, which is excellent considering his aim was for around 2 hours.

The marshals were superb, made sure that the roads were safe to run on and were stood exactly where they needed to be, and I just thought this was a lovely race.

This was a good race which flew by, and maybe in warmer and drier conditions I could’ve got a course PB or at the very least a minute or two off.

Actually, maybe the slow-mo run for about 20 yards when the brass band were playing “Chariots of Fire” didn’t help with achieving a PB neither.