Poppy Half and Grand Union Canal 2012 now live

The Bexhill Poppy Half Marathon is now live and online here:
http://bit.ly/Poppy-Half-2012-race-photos
The gallery includes the kids races that took place before the main race.
The race website is here: http://www.poppyhalf.co.uk/ which has the full results on it

The Purple Patch Grand Union Canal Half Marathon gallery is live and online here:
http://bit.ly/Grand-Union-Half-2012-Race-Photos
The race results and website is here: http://www.purplepatchrunning.com/races/grand-union-canal-half-marathon-


Rememberance Sunday is always a significant day in the calendar for many reasons and it's testimony to the success of the Bexhill Poppy Half marathon that their policy of starting the race at 12:30 pm has worked well. I think it's the only half marathon we cover that starts in the afternoon - and it works well. There must be space in the calender for more events that start in the afternoon, rather than always being a 9am start on a Sunday morning !

The weather held out for both races this year - bright low light at this time of year produces interesting reflections off windows, blocks of flats, water and white painted buildings - which means you can get the most weird near studio lighting situations - where you would expect a face to be in shade, it is fully lit. Some of you will also sometimes see me trying to blind you with my reflector. Well that's not exactly what I'm trying to do - it's just that without it you're never going to see your face under that hat, backlit into a low sun when you see the photos online. Plus it also brings out the colour in your clothes, rather than that grey shadowy look you get otherwise when we're looking into the sun, which is generally not a good idea.

Both races were relatively free of incident, except for one runner on the Grand Union Canal race who went for a bit of an unplanned dip when he came off the top path down the slippy bank and couldn't stop fast enough... He was wet and a bit surprised, but he did manage to hold onto his drink bottle all the way through and went on to finish too.

If you can't find a photo of yourself at the finish of the Poppy Half marathon it's because the shadows, cars and general layout was making it impossible to get good quality shots of you - so the team moved into the park and just after it where there was light, nice backgrounds and far better memories to be had.

Well done to Purple Patch Running for completing another season of fantstic events throughout the year, and keeping the rain off for all of them. Congratualtions too for Paul Holdaway and the team at Team Lifestyle Sports Events for their race series and triathlons based out of Bexhill that has provided East Sussex with a portfolio of events over the past year.

Next races

Brutal 10k - this Saturday - just off the A3 at Bordon - extreme cross country running, no fake obstacles - just nature and you running across it, but probably not quite how you would have intended. i.e without a boat.  We see more smiles at the end of these runs than most of the other standard races we cover - so come on down and test yourself. NB bring spare clothes for afterwards !



The Brooks Brighton 10k - on Sunday was sold out months ago. Ignore any other claims that I've seen other races on the south coast make about their 10k - this is THE premier 10k along the coast with the fastest field and the flattest route. PB-tastic if you're autumn training has been speeding up - this is where you can put it all down to the test. We're going to be there with a team of six to get all the action - so make sure you have your best running face on and make that PB something to remember !


The Hogs Back 10k
and if you're really planning ahead - then on December the 2nd there's the renewed Hogs Back 10k in and around Guildford from Loseley House and along the Hogs Back. We're providing free download photos for that one - so might be worth a last run out before the start of the school holidays stop you ?


As ever - here's a few pictures from the weekend, see if you can spot the mistake (you can click on these images to see them larger online).

Well done Emily, and thanks for the feedback - here's your one for the cover of Runners World or AW

James doesn't have a computer apparently - so he'll miss this one of him flying

Turn left at the start and head for the De La Ware pavillion - The start of the Bexhill Poppy Half Marathon

Ok I should have cropped in more on this - but lovely happy jazz hands

Here he comes ! Good running through the park

Left arm, right foot. It's not tricky. Or is this a remake of walk like an Egyptian ?

First lady, looking calm and nonchelant

Big duck spash in the canal behind them ? (great to see an Abo mara tshirt out too)

Nope, not a big Duck splash, just someone going for a quick dip...

Correct happy arm waving technique !

No Surrender

Oi you, yes you. Why arn't you running ?

The Mo-Runs-away high-five preparation position

High-Five for Kate

Smooth running into the finish with an autumn colour.

Right that's it until next time, when I'll probably rant on about watermarked image copying, an analogy between chefs and photographers, and something else that I've not considered properly yet but will hopefully be uplifting and cheery to counterbalance the other stuff. In other news I'm going to put a T&C agreement on the gallery.

Have a good time this last two weeks - as it's only two weeks to go before you get broken into thinking about christmas instead of running, which never seems right.

Oh and if you're thinking about chirstmas presents of photos from races that have been archived - get in touch now because the archive hunt queue is massive and it takes us ages to dig stuff out - so give us a chance in advance. Thanks !

Anthony