Sussex Beacon Brighton Half Marathon 21 February 2010 Charlotte Lens reports: This is a popular half marathon with almost 6,000 entrants this year. This is partly due to it's timing, which fits in perfectly with training for a Spring marathon, notably London, and the course which runs along the seafront, which is very picturesque if the weather is nice... The course this year was slightly different to previous years due to the cliffs being deemed unsafe, so the notorious climb up them and then the sharp descent down was no longer a worry for runners. Instead the course had a busy zig-zag route up and down Madeira drive, which you did once at the start and then again in the final few miles. The only slight downside here is you go past people finishing when you still have 2 miles to go. Despite the bitter cold, wind and heavy rain which then turned to sleet, the supporters turned out in their hundreds to cheer everyone on which was fantastic. The route was well marshalled, and there were drinks stations every 3 miles which had both water and Lucozade sports drinks, which again was ideal for anyone training for London. It was slightly chaotic at the end because there really wasn't enough space for everyone to take a cup of water, have their chip taken off, collect their medal, and be handed a foil sheet and banana. There were only 2 Striders that ran it this year, myself and Beverley Doel. As this is only my second half marathon I just wanted to beat last year's time of 2:01:41. I was over the moon to see my time of 1:48:15, a new PB by over 13 mins! As I was queuing up at the end to have my chip removed I saw Beverley, who had finished just ahead of me in 1:48:09. Given the weather conditions we were amazed at our times! In previous years there hasn't much support, more people on a day out that happened to stumble upon a race, and runners were often disappointed to not receive a medal at the end. The organisers have clearly listened to comments and made a big effort to advertise and drum up local support and provide medals for all runners. I will definitely be entering this race again next year.