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| The start of the 2021 Southampton Half Marathon |
The ABP Southampton Marathon, Half and 10k Free race gallery is now live and online here -
https://sspimg.com/Southampton-2021-FreeDownloadGalleryPerfect weather, a gentle breeze, but not too much, and a noisy but not overcrowded support crowd, great PA and commentary, a strong emergency safety team and about 4000 runners on the streets of Southampton. With the Van, the team and a whole load of enthusiasm we took, tagged and have put over 134,000 images online - all available free to download ! Thank you to the event and their sponsors ! The full results are here - https://dbmaxresults.co.uk/Results.aspx?CId=16421&RId=2288
I know I'm a bit biased (because it's my home athletics club) - but it was good to see a Brighton and Hove Athlete win the half marathon (in 1:12) well done Mr Cork !
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| winning the Half in 1:12:21.7 - Mr Cork ! |
Also over the weekend we had the Macmillan Lake District Mighty Hike, as well as the Jurassic Coast ones over the Saturday and the Sunday, combined with the Ultra-X Summer Trail. All these events were delivered with Pic2Go live technology on the day - and so if you were in any of those - go over to www.pic2go.co.uk/register to claim your free personal RunPage Galleries and all your photos there. But you've probably all done that by now haven't you... this blog is just some sort of ancient delayed broadcasting tool isn't it.
The rearrangement of various races (including Southampton) from the March April time of year meant that we were unable to support quite a lot of races this weekend we would have normally jumped at the chance to - however there is only a certain finite number of race photographers available in various locations and - hopefully with the return to a more "normal" seasonal calendar in 2022 we can do that - whatever normal now means because the London Marathon have honestly declared they can't sort a global sized race out in 6 months whilst everyone is still sort of getting ill and some still sadly dying. No surprises there then. At least they have been honest about it, but goodness knows what's going to happen next march !
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| Plenty of safe firemen around the course on Sunday |
One of the most overwhelming things about Southampton was the number of familiar faces who said that they had had Covid, or knew someone severely ill with it. Those who had had it - had all been double jabbed, but had all been bedridden and very ill for about 5 days - so still an extremely unpleasant experience. Sadly I now know someone with a partner on life support with covid, and my thoughts are with them daily, as well as how blasé and overconfident perhaps we are becoming to it, which is never historically good in the scheme of hindsight and the history of the world. Perhaps that's why almost half the runners stayed away on Sunday ? I sincerely hope that Chris and Abi at the Reese leisure team are going to put a gentle survey email out to all the no-shows to ask them why and what might have persuaded them to make it down to the city. Whilst MassParticipationWorld.com (MPW) have been doing global surveys of races and still can't put a single finger on an attributed case of covid in a runner because they did a running race - we're still probably more likely to get Covid from standing around and supporting a race and talking to strangers face to face whilst we're all squished up at a race barrier shouting our fomites about.
Again a post event survey of participants v's no shows could potentially be a great test and control source of data for showing that being at a race is or is not a greater covid health risk than not attending a race... over to you Chris with your data...
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| The events emergency safety team working out the last minute details of who has to give Chris mouth to mouth if he needed it. I kept well out. |
Having been talking to our regular friends at events - ie the timing companies - all of them are reporting what can best be described as "Covid hesitancy". Entries are turning into last minute rushes (which doesn't help the event organisers nerves), deferrals are starting to be charged for (because - admin), more people are just "not showing up" on the day, and perhaps a few have discovered that training through August for a September or October marathon isn't as easy when the family are on holiday, and you're stuck in a traffic jam to the west country, compared to February when frankly you just want to go outside and scream along a run in private. Whatever it is - there's still a certain caution and misgiving about being at mass events. The recent news from Reading, Leeds and Boardmasters music festivals (where obviously the behaviour is exemplary compared to runners) probably had a few people doubting their own sanity about a mass event outside, just with less music. less tents. and less young people. and alas - less alcohol.
Apart from a few anti-vaxers (with banners of "If your vaccine works why should I wear a mask") the crowd were generally well behaved - but the cycling style barriers with their large sheeting posters do make one "hell of a noise", especially when hit in rhythm to Sweet Caroline enthusiastically ! Thank goodness for ear plugs...
SO that's a quick summary of where we find ourselves. All the rest of the races we're at are almost all completely signed up - but it's always worth a mention of Basingstoke Half marathon as many Southampton based people can get up there pretty easily if you fancy a true countryside closed road race - enter it here: https://www.destinationbasingstoke.co.uk/half-marathon/ - it's in a month and you will have recovered by then - so get entering !
So here's some uplifting images of Southampton from the weekend - enjoy and don't forget to download your own for free !! (and then use them to TELL EVERYONE how well you did!)
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| Cookies ! |
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| That winning feeling |
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| keeping it coulourfull |
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| Brilliant Brittania |
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| no number, no photo. Don't care who you are. |
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| Well done Serpie ! |
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| Sweeper van driver. and race director. top job Chris ! |
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| Rob seemed happy ! |
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| brilliant challenge and example to all |
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| not sure those balloons make it any lighter to be honest |
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| There's a Bar and a Gate in this photo. Yes bargate ! |
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| looking competitive on the first turns |
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| all go from the start |
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| still our best 400m flat runner ever... good 10k this time too |
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| she saw the two cameras on the gantry |
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| Great teamwork fundraising |
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| I'm wondering who got the better photo? |
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| Mind out ! |
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| I whip my hair.... |
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| far too much smiling here |
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| the goal is this big |
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| home team on their way through |
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| Football Marshal not impressed with pitchside celebrations |
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| for the win |
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| smiles into the sunrise |
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| that's the big hill done then ! |
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| double thumbs up for the bridge |
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| Victory !! [isn't that in Plymouth ? Ed] |
So that's it for last weekend, we're at the Wye Valley Mighty Hike this Saturday and the Raw Energy Pursuits River Adur 5k swim - which is always a fantastically challenging event !
Otherwise we hope to see you soon - full future event details are on our calendar - if you fancy being at an event with free download photos ! here: https://sussexsportphotography.blogspot.com/p/calendar-of-events.html
until next time, keep safe,
Anthony
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