Michael Hinchliffe
Michael's page
Fundraising for Arms Around The Child
Story
Hi there,
Thanks for visiting my Brighton Marathon page. I am running for Keep a Child Alive, which is a charity dedicated to providing AIDS treatment, care and support services to children and families in Africa and India. KCA currently funds 8 orphan care and clinical sites in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa and India and has served over 250,000 people. I've only visited Africa once but would love to make a contribution to help families and orphans across the continent who have been affected by HIV/AIDS. Out of the 10,000 runners expected to complete the Brighton marathon, only about 35 are supporting KCA so I'd really appreciate any contribution you are able to make.
There are more details about KCA here - http://keepachildalive.org/
This is my first marathon, and in fact my first "race" since completing a 3 mile fun run in Saudi Arabia in about 1982. I've been training seriously since about October 2009, although I've had to deal with the usual set-backs - numerous blisters, one black toe-nail, an occasionally sore left ankle, a slightly more frequently dodgy right knee that has necessitated several trips to the physio, e.t.c. However, I've built up my mileage over the weeks to the point where I've completed 45-55 miles per week for the last month.
I'm hoping to complete the marathon in around 3hrs 45mins. Mentally, I think I'm OK because I've completed a couple of 22 mile runs and even managed to complete 17 miles on a treadmill one Sunday morning when I couldn't face being rained on for 2.5 hrs. Physically, we'll have to see how my dodgy knee holds up on the day.
There are more details about the Brighton marathon here - http://brightonmarathon.co.uk/
Silverstone Half-Marathon Update - 14th March 2010
As a training exercise for Brighton, I completed the Silverstone Half-Marathon on Sunday 14th March. Yes... Mothering Sunday. Poor planning on my part!!
Silverstone was typically bleak on a breezy March Sunday morning, despite the sunshine. There were around 10,000 runners so it was great experience for me prior to Brighton. I got there pretty early, probably around 10am, and all the runners were sent to the car park at gate 17, which is at the back of Farm, about 15-20 mins walk from the paddock. Had a bit of a wander but other than an Adidas stand and Lucozade sport, there was little entertainment. The usual Divine burger stand was doing a brisk trade, although I assume those partaking weren't planning to run 13.1 miles an hour or so later!
The race was due to start at midday so I headed to the start area around 11:30. I was shivering before the start, probably through a combination of a chilling breeze and being rather nervous. Once we got going, I was fine. We started with a lap of the circuit, then took the pit lane past the garages, and started looping around various parts of the infield, before heading around the back of the Becketts stand and then back onto the circuit for a closing 3 miles in reverse around the circuit. At various points we ended up running on packed mud / gravel; I didn't realise it was going to be off-road as well as on! The first 4 or 5 miles felt interminable, I seemed to then mentally miss a couple of miles because the next time I checked, I was just passing the 7 mile marker. Yippee, over half way!! I slowly started to speed up so I'm pretty sure I completed the second half more quickly than the first (note - technical term, a "negative split"). It was tricky dealing with all the people in the first few miles and it seemed to take ages for everyone to start stringing out a bit. Good practice though. I managed a fair amount of overtaking in the latter part of the race so was reasonably happy.
The last mile felt like it was up hill into a particularly unpleasant headwind. I can't quite fathom this out because we started in the opposite direction and I'm pretty sure that was uphill too. I pushed myself about as hard as I could for the last mile and finished in about 1:43:44. This placed me 820th out of 5,680 finishers, 91st out of 453 in my age group category. I'd love to break 1hr 40mins next time!
Many thanks for your support,
Michael