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Brighton Marathon 2023

1 lurker | 19 watchers

Surrey Phil Mar 2023 5:17pm, 30 Mar 2023 9,252 posts	Quote Pin Surrey Phil Without causing offence to anyone on here, have you seen who the official starters are? After ten years of legendary sportsmen and women (plus presenter, Zoe Ball) we have not had anyone since lockdown. Surely, you can find someone; e.g. Sally Gunnell, Charlie Grice with athletic or sporting links to the city, but the choice of starter is somewhat bizarre.
StuH Mar 2023 5:38pm, 30 Mar 2023 4,568 posts	Quote Pin StuH Seen nothing on FB or their website. Who is it?
premierfella Mar 2023 8:46pm, 30 Mar 2023 59 posts	Quote Pin premierfella I have to confess that I've never seen a single episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race so the names mean nothing to me. Almost anywhere but Brighton it would raise a quizzical eyebrow given its a sporting event, but in keeping with the wider Brighton vibe I guess.
JJJ Mar 2023 9:45pm, 30 Mar 2023 259 posts	Quote Pin JJJ It's Brighton! You just get used to it! theargus.co.uk Anyway, marquees up in the Park and Lawns, fences and cones all over the road sides, the build is properly in progress!
tommy_b Mar 2023 10:48pm, 30 Mar 2023 212 posts	Quote Pin tommy_b I find official starters irrelevant. It’s a massive crowd. It’s not on tv. No one apart from the first wave will see or hear them. Who cares?
JJJ Mar 2023 3:46am, 31 Mar 2023 260 posts	Quote Pin JJJ I think having official starters is solely a PR thing - the press won't be interested if LMEs Race Director or CEO etc is starter. As you say, doesn't make any difference to the runners. Some of the starters in the past must have cost GE quite a lot, Brendan Foster and his wife flew down & back, were driven to and from Heathrow (I drove them back, was quite nice to chat for a couple of hours!), stayed at the Metropole for the weekend. Presumably GE paid for all that plus a fee, which would have contributed to their debt.
Surrey Phil Mar 2023 12:38pm, 31 Mar 2023 9,253 posts	Quote Pin Surrey Phil Brendan Foster didn't actually start the race although he was present and at the finish. Steve Cram obviously needed flying down south in 2011 as well. Although I have never done so, a lot of the runners quite like a high five with running royalty. Having had Matt Prior (cricket) and two Brighton managers act as starter, I would have thought there were enough local sporting stars out there.
StuH Mar 2023 8:38pm, 31 Mar 2023 4,569 posts	Quote Pin StuH Hey Surrey Phil I've just spotted the route you've uploaded to the race listing. Is that from an official gpx? Or did you plot it based on the route map?
Surrey Phil Mar 2023 8:56pm, 31 Mar 2023 9,256 posts	Quote Pin Surrey Phil It is plotted from the course map on the BMW website. You will probably recall that this is not quite the same route as advised by GEC last summer. As I had also plotted that one, I quickly changed it on here this week.
tommy_b Mar 2023 10:38pm, 31 Mar 2023 214 posts	Quote Pin tommy_b 23 entrants from fetch on the race listing. Everyone else has a marathon pb showing and I don’t. I’ve ran marathon distances in training / ultras but never raced one. I wonder if I should count my fastest time over a marathon distance or stick with blank until I run it on a race race…