Midnight Sun Marathon: 16 June 2007

 Men and women:  Separate Other races:   

All runners

#  Pos arrow Name arrow Time arrow Cat arrow Club arrow Graded arrow Pace arrow
1 1 Mark Braley 2:56:06 V35 Serpentine 70.9% 6:43
2 2 Diane Haywood 3:37:51 FV40 Serpentine 65.9% 8:18
3 3 Claire Levermore 3:50:57 SL Serpentine 58.7% 8:48

Race conditions

Cool, with rain later on.

Report

The world's most northerly marathon, taking place at 70 deg North, inside the Arctic Circle.

Quite a good course for fast times: 1) it is fairly flat (although a number of runners did comment on the heavy camber on the roads, making it wearing on the hips) and 2) the temperature is generally just right for running, certainly no more than 10C. The race starts at 8.30pm, meaning that you may well still be running under rays of the midnight sun (daylight is 24 hours at this time of year). It is however pretty likely to rain for at least some of the race and this year it hit around 2.15 hours in, raining fairly heavily for maybe 30 minutes. The late start does mean that you may have to concentrate on 1) not eating too much during the day and 2) not spending too much time wandering around sight-seeing!

The level of support is fairly good, considering that Tromso and the surrounding area are not heavily populated. The race was fairly well marshalled although at times you did have to concentrate on following the blue line on the road to find the way. The race is also small enough that you can even experience following the lead bike for a few kilometres (and it was a push bike, not a motorbike!). Drinks stations every 5km with water and an energy drinks, plus bananas.

Also run at the same time are a half marathon, a 10km race and a children's mini-marathon. Across all the events there were around 1700 competitors, with around 320 finishers in the marathon. Bear in mind that Tromso is fairly small, so the available accommodation gets booked up well in advance.

Three Serpies ran this year: Diane Haywood won her age group, Claire Levermore knocked 13 minutes off her PB, and Mark Braley 1 minute off his.

Result queries

If you have any queries about these results please email results@serpentine.org.uk