 I've run the Stenning Stinger Marathon four times previously. It's usually a complete mudfest, but great fun. This year, the event fitted nicely into my Paris Marathon training block, as a long run at moderate effort in and around heart rate zone 2. Right, good morning. Welcome to Stenning Grammar School, which is the start location of the headquarters of the Stenning Stinger Marathon. Well, Marathon, half Marathon, and now a 30K they've introduced this year as well. The start is just over the road from the Grammar School and the leisure centre. Stenning leisure centre is just over there, so we cross this road and then where those flags are is where we start. It's a rolling start, so you can start anytime you want to between half past seven in the morning and eight o'clock for the marathon. For breakfast, I'd have porridge with honey and a chopped banana. So there's no big fanfare here. We literally just start our watches, cross the line. There is a cheer put on the beard, so they know exactly when we've crossed the line to start and obviously when we cross the line to finish. So let's just go. Thank you. Right, so we are off in the Stenning Stinger Marathon. What's fun about starting a bit early is that all the faster runners might, well, they might, come past us. Unless they've all started early, they will come past us in about an hour or so's time. So 42km away we go. Cheers guys. One kilometre in and we're on the road up to a place called Whiston House before we start a big climb. Thank you for your morning. Right, so this is Whiston House here, which I mentioned earlier. We're just about two kilometres in now. I'm not going to be doing updates every kilometre. And so now we're going to climb up onto the South Downs. Four kilometres in, 22 minutes. Normally that section back there, or this whole section here through the forest, is an absolute mess of mud. But it's really dry today. So hopefully we're not going to get too bogged down literally. I was wearing a Montaigne fleece with my Zwift vest underneath and the trusty Speed Goat Fives on my feet. Six kilometres in, 33 and a half minutes. First drinks stop here. Seven and a half K in and we're in the lovely village of Washington. This is a St Mary's Parish Church in Washington. Just going to cross over the A24 road and then we'll be climbing up and out onto the South Downs way. Over this bridge and onto the first significant climb of the race of about 140 metres. I reached the top surprised at how comfortable it felt. 10 K in, 57 minutes gone. And we're at one of the highest points, not the highest point, but one of the highest points of the marathon. Overlooking the villages down there, Washington, where we've just come from, climbed up a big hill. And now we're going to head back in towards the highest point, Chanktonbury Ring. Feeling pretty good at the moment, but it is early days, still 20 miles to go. With Paris in mind, I was definitely holding back a little, making sure I didn't work overly hard and trying to ensure I stayed injury free. This close to my goal race would not be the time to get injured. That said, I did want a solid run rather than a slow jog and I wanted to make sure to maintain my pace rather than slow down towards the end. Nearly 10 miles in to the Stenning Stinger marathon, one hour, 28 minutes. That's the South Downsway there that we're now just joining on to at the top of this climb up to Chanktonbury Ring. The second major climb of the race is 154 metres, but it does bring you up to the best views in the run. And here we are at the highest point of the race, the top of Chanktonbury, Chanktonbury Iron Age hill forts here and the North Downs way over in the distance over there, Worthing and the Isle of Wight miles away in the distance. That way you can see the Isle of Wight on a clear day from here. This is where they allow you to decide whether you want to do the marathon or the half marathon or the 30K. If you want to do the half, you go that way. We're going to continue that way to do the marathon. So this is Lee. Lee's managed to get into TDS this year. Are you feeling worried about it or excited? Excited. I love the challenge. I love the mountains. It's an amazing experience. I did see last year. Loved it. So just going up to the next step. Lee was at the end when I crossed the line for TDS. You might remember in my video from last year. Have a good one, Lee. Right, halfway through in one hour 54, 21 kilometres done. We've just passed the car park at Sisbury Ring. Just had some chocolate and some water. I had a loose goal of finishing in under four hours, so I was on track. So that's 10 miles to go. We've done 16 miles in two hours and 16 minutes. We're climbing up Cardiac Hill now towards the top of Sisbury Ring. Starting to feel a little bit fatigued now. Just under 30K in. Two hours 35 minutes. Cheers, guys. Thank you. It's worth just taking a minute, just to relax a second. Because we are now thinking about the home stretch. We've got to go around a hill here called Steep Down, which is that hill there. We're not going up to the top of it. We're just going around it. And then we get back to that drink station there. And then I think it's about four miles home, something like that. So I'm not feeling too bad. Just kind of need to maintain, really. You'll notice I wasn't carrying any bottles or wearing a race vest. I relied solely on the aid stations. And in fact, because the temperature was cold, my entire hydration and nutrition consisted of just two cups of water, one cube of chocolate and one jelly baby during the whole race. There we are. That is 20 miles done in two hours 50 minutes. So we've got 10K to go. And if I want to do it in under four hours, I've got an hour and 10 minutes to do 10K. So let's go and do this thing. Feeling okay. Feeling pretty good. What's your name? Stephen. Have you done this before? I've done it. I did it last year, 425. Okay, well, you're on for that today, I think. Yeah, I should be way inside it today. It's a lot drier than we expected today. We are on the most annoying part of the course, which is a long, slow drag at 34 kilometers in three hours, 19 minutes, a park run to go. 5K left. It's done 37 kilometers. Still a little bit of climbing to do though. And then it's a 2K downhill to the finish. The final climb is about 130 meters from kilometer 36 to 39. Hi there, knackered you. Three hours, 30 minutes. Thank you. This is the final drink stop here. Gives away. So 3K to go down to the finish. Push it as hard as we can now to the end. Having planned on a four hour finish, with the dry conditions it now meant if I could make it down the hill in good time, I could potentially get in under three hours 45. It would mean a negative split and a 10 minute course PB if I could do it. But it is a very steep descent and I was still mindful of not falling and getting injured. So it was perhaps a 90% effort rather than a gung-ho push it as hard as I can run to the finish line. It's been a great race. Felt good most of the way round and we've got 100 meters to the finish. Standing sting of marathon done. Three hours 44, 38. That's my fastest time on this course, but it was very dry. How'd you manage? Yeah, we did the 30 and it was fantastic. Good. Knew it was a new event for this year but it was great. Yeah, we really enjoyed that. We really enjoyed it. Really enjoying the run for Boston. I feel like we're straight now. We made it. It was great. Notice how I'll just drop Boston marathon in there. Well, fast this year, wasn't it? Yeah. What'd you do? Under four hours. Good. Nice one. That do me stuff. So one phenomenal thing about the standing sting of marathon is that you come inside after you've finished and you get a free, well, I mean, it's not free. It's paid for with your marathon entry breakfast. This is our medal, sustainable wood medal. I had been hoping for top 20 but came in 23rd position overall and third in my age category. Maybe around 10 miles in something like that. Andy passed me and I said he's going to do 345 and what did you end up doing in the end? 325. But I did 345. So that's all right, isn't it? Well done, Andy. This is our breakfast. I've gone to the vegetarian option, but you can go full meat if you like. Right. If you want to see the last time I ran the standing stinger marathon, click that link right there. But that is it from this year's standing stinger PV on this course because it was so dry. Very pleased with that though. Bodeswell for the Paris marathon in a few weeks time. Thank you very much for watching. Take care. We'll see you on the start line next time. Bye-bye.