Serpie Planner - event reports
Southend Half Marathon (12 Jun 2005)
Report: Fairly fast & flat coarse. 1000+ field and track finish. Fairly well organised but best put bags in car rather than handing over as queue's at beginning and end were v long.
report by Neil Aitken
Southend Half Marathon (11 Jun 2006)
The sweltering conditions ensured that times at this race were well down on peoples\' pbs, and a high rate of both dns and dnf. Somewhat surprisingly, the route takes you nowhere near a cooling sea-breeze, being mostly on dual carriageway and other roads. So don\'t go for the scenery. However, the event is well-organised with chip timing, accurate mile markers, 5 water and sponge stations (most of which I walked through to ensure adequate fluid intake), a kids\' fun run, bouncy castle, changing and showers in a leisure centre and ample parking close to the start. There were also plentiful first aid facilities, both on route and at the finish. These were very heavily-used on the day by those suffering dehydration and heat exhaustion.
771 runners finished. The leading lady finished in 1:31, despite regularly running 1:23 she said. Despite a truly awful run on account of the heat, I managed to secure both 3rd lady and first W45 prize, so others must have suffered as I did.
Report by Karen Hancock.