Race Your Pace Half Marathon

Bit of a strange first blog post from me. This is quite possibly the first race that I have used exclusively for training. Admittedly there have been races where I have not been operating at my best, but even those races I always thought I would go and give it a good shot.

Having run 40km the day before I knew producing anything fast over the half marathon would be tricky, and also slightly dangerous! Racing the day after this kind of session is asking for injury. So I ended up saying in my head I would aim for sub 1h20 and knew that this would represent a tough workout.

The course for the 'Race Your Pace Half Marathon' isn't particularly interesting. It is 4 and a bit laps of Dorney Lake, the venue for the 2012 Olympic rowing. There are a number of Triathlons and other running races races held here throughout the year, which means over the past few years I have clocked up a number of laps down at the Lake (it's also part of a few of my training loops). I started the first lap at a brisk pace, but was clocking above the pace required for 1h20. I was planning on speeding up as I went along and to negative split the run. Laps 2 and 3, went as planned with a very noticeable speed up, however it wasn't coming easy.  With 3 and a bit laps done (i.e. one lap to go) I was just over an hour, and this was a hour of good quality running. I wasn't suffering majorly but I was definately working. I decided at this stage to 'jog in', I knew the next 5km at this pace would hurt me and I decided today was not a day to suffer, I would save the suffering for another day (i.e. the 100km I've got coming up). I accepted that the 1 hour of running represented a good workout and proceeded with my warm down, which was finishing the race and added an extra 30mins jogging on the end.

When I slowed down, it felt like I was running around a 7min/mile pace, however the fact I was in a race meant even though I was trying to go slow there was something holding me back as I comfortably hit 6m40 per mile. It seems as soon as I finished the race I settled easily into 7m15 per mile pace for the reminder of my warm down!!! I guess I'm a little competitive...

My finishing time was 1:22:25, not fast, but for training and with 40km in the legs the day before. I was happy. Next major race the Anglo-Celtic Plate 100km, but I might throw in a 10km for good measure.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog on Ultra running (and well normal running). I plan to share my stories of races, dragging my young body around races against middle aged men (sorry, its true, and you beat me most of the time!)

Enjoy.