Marathon

The Falklands has the world's most southerly accredited marathon and with the gradients and weather it is said to be one of the toughest courses. The 2009 race was run yesterday. The weather was favourable - cool and overcast but dry and with only a light wind.
Simon decided a few weeks ago that he would like to enter. As he doesn't normally run he has had an intensive training period of a little over a month. 3 weeks ago he ran the Cape Pembroke half marathon in 1 hour 51 mins. Much of that is off road.

Many of the marathon runners are from the military and a number of people fly in to the islands specifically to run it. As well as people doing the whole course there are a lot of teams of 4 runners who do it as a relay.
The marathon is organised by the Standard Chartered bank here and the money raised from entry fees and sponsorship goes to the charity Seeing is Believing which aims to restore sight to blind people around the world.
The race started at 10am behind the town hall so I saw Simon off and then went to church before cycling up to the halfway point to encourage him on. I then met up with him again later and cycled beside him for the last leg. He finished in 4 hours and 17 minutes which I thought was fantastic. We didn't go back down later for the prize giving so don't know yet what the winning time was. No doubt all will be revealed in the penguin news on Friday.
There is only one snag to Simon doing so well. When he first mentioned that he was thinking of entering I rather foolishly said that if he did the marathon I would do the midwinter swim!