A tale of two halves

Last Sunday, I woke up early excited to do the Great Bentley Half Marathon.  Excited because this was going to be a pb, and excited because it would hopefully give me a time that showed a London Good for age time in my marathon is achievable.  I had been ill the last few days but I just thought my business was what was making me feel worse, so I had had an early night in the hope a long sleep would shift it.  A few minutes after I woke and was getting ready, I started to cough, and then the waves of tiredness swept over me, despite the 11 hour sleep.  I thought I better check my resting heart rate, and not going below 80, it confirmed I just wasn't well enough to race.  I told some friends on Facebook, and their outpouring of love and support overwhelmed me a bit.  I actually had a cry!  I can't believe I cried over not being able to do the race.  I later apologised to David for being such a pansy, and crying over a DNS, but he said you're not a pansy, you're passionate... Smart man, I should marry him.

I went on to Great Bentley to cheer on my friends, and about 30 minutes after the race start, my sinuses started to block up again, and I was at peace with my decision.  An emergency trip to tesco for sudafed allowed me to breath with my mouth closed, waiting to go out and cheer my friends.  I got to the finish at about 1:25, and Danny came whizzing past at 1:28!!!! He said that although the wind was bad, it wasn't as bad as it had been when we ran together on the seafront a few weeks ago.  There were many pbs achieved by my friends.  I had my eye on Lorraine- our Parkrun times are similar, but I suspect she copes better with speed endurance.  She got in in 1:43:46!!! Ahh my goal was going to be 1:45 (8mm) I wasn't sure I could do Lorraine's time of 7:55mm.  After the race, we went back to Somei's who had got a massive pb despite surgery a week ago, for a hot tub party.  This was great for my achy muscles, and was really nice to get to know everyone a bit better.  Inspired by everyone's success, I was determined to find another half marathon I could do to test it as a race.  I'm already signed up to Colchester half, but my plan is to run that at marathon pace.  This half was to tell me my marathon pace is realistic.

I knew @malcsbarbour was doing the Dorney lake race your pace half marathon, and I thought it was the following week.  Some googling when I got home confirmed this, but 10am Saturday morning when David would have to drive, plus £32 race entry seemed a bit steep.  David offered it to me as a Valentines day present, and I was happy again... Really must marry this guy, he knows the way to my heart is through my feet...

Until Friday when I saw what the weather was going to be doing!  I thought I'd escaped a windy run by not doing Great Bentley, but alas, I spent Friday night worrying if we were actually going to make it too the race venue.  It was a hard drive because it was so windy, but I had executed my pre race nutrition plan perfectly, so perfectly that by the time we got to Dorney, I was bursting for the loo.   I was very amused to see this sign in the portaloo....

I did wonder if it was referring to the race, or going to the toilet...

We then got into the shelter of the boat house, giving up on our previous meeting point which would have been outside.  Through twitter, we managed to meet up 

@rachelclarke, @malcsbarbour, @james_e_carroll, @james linney and me, oh and were photo bombed by that tall chap behind!

A bit of chat about goals and expectations before we hustled down to the start.  I did a quick warm up jog and felt a twinge in my hip, I suspect from  sitting down in the car.  Gave it a quick massage and hoped it was just pre-race nerves.  I found the 8mm pacer with James, and had a quick chat to him about his pacing plan, given the windy conditions.  He was intending to stay bang on 8mm.  There were two other 8mm pacers and I didn't hear their chat, and wondered whether they had decided on something else as the race got going.

I stuck with the one who said he was running 8mm evens for the first couple of miles, but the grouping of the people around him was starting to get to me, especially the big men with their pointy elbows, and meanness not letting me in the crowd.  Shortly after 2 miles, we crossed over the bridge and with that small shelter firm the wind I caught up with the 8mm pacer group who were just ahead.  I kept with them but could feel the gear was switching up a bit, and we did the 3rd mile in 7:45, dramatically pulling away from the other 8mm pacer behind.  All I had read on pacing groups suggested that sticking with a group will allow you to go a little bit faster than you are capable of, so I decided to stick with them,  but too many pointy elbowed men meant I kept getting dropped off the back.  When they started another mile going at 7:30 and didn't seem to be slowing, I decided I better get back into my own pace, as I wasn't able to gain the benefits from the group.  The time in hand would hopefully help me later in the race in case this earlier running too fast would cause me to blow up.

I took my first gel at 5miles and not wanting to lose time, I ran with it- I don't usually practise this, and I was thinking of @mia79gbr's report of this race last year and how she squirted gel in her eye.  I took small sips of the gel so that I wasn't running too long without breathing.  I was on my own now, but could see the fast pacer group ahead of me.  I was contemplating when to start my final push, 8 miles, 9 miles? 10 miles?  I didn't think 8 miles would work as I still needed to take on another gel, and the wind was affecting me, since I didn't have a group around to shield me from the wind.  I took the first gel that came out of my pouch- luckily it was a caffeine gel, and started sipping on it, after I stopped at the water station.  This was half way thru the third lap, with one more lap to go.  Really I could push at any point from here, especially as the wind was slightly favourable as you run toward the boathouse.  I passed the slowest runner here as the front runner passed me, and it made me think that despite the pacer going off fast, it was a really good way to avoid congestion on a multi-lap course.

I was trying to do some calculations now,  would I be able to beat my sub 1:45 target, would I be able to beat Lorraine's time?  Both were dependent on keeping going at my pace and beating Lorraine's was dependent on being able to pick it up.  The wind had dropped a bit on my last run away from the boathouse, but I still struggled to stay under 8mm, maybe it was psychological now.  I had to have a bit of a talking to myself to get it done.  Less than a Parkrun left to run.  I did start to smile that I had my pb now, and as mile 10 clicked to mile 11 I smiled that I had achieved my 1:45 target.  Now it was about how far under that I could go.  Could I do sub 1:44??  Could I do sub 1:43?  I thought I could but as always there was a bit of a mental struggle.  As mile 11 clicked to 12, I picked up the pace and was doing 7:30, which seemed incredible to me as it's faster than my best 10k pace- another sign that the training is paying off.  I very soon passed the pacer group that had gone off too fast, and there wasn't much of a group left, perhaps proving that they were too fast.  12 miles into the race, and I was starting to get hot, perhaps because the wind had dropped.  So I rolled down my arm warmers and took off my gloves, with about 800m to go.  I really started pushing and could tell I was going up a gear as I managed to pass people, and even the girl who had started running with me around 11 miles seemed to vanish.  Instead of doing another lap, I could turn left into the finish chute. I thought it was going to be longer but only about 20m to the mats, David and elephant were there to cheer me across the line and I could see the clock on 1:43:xx I was determined It wouldn't get to 1:44 but didn't dare look at my garmin as I was focusing on my stride.

I stopped the garmin on 1:43:05!!! Wowsers a 7 minute pb, and last year in march I did 1:56 so 13 minutes improvement in less than a year.

I was a very happy bunny

 Great medal too!  It has a tortoise and a hare... I guess I was the tortoise since I overtook the hares pacer group at 12 miles 

And here are my paces:

I managed to catch up with Rachel and Malcs at the end.  Both had had brilliant races!  Malcs achieving sub 1:30, and Rachel also achieving a 7 minute pb and a perfectly executed race, despite losing her glasses in the wind at around 4 miles!

It was expensive for a half marathon, but you did get a decent medal and technical tee out of it.. I would mention the pacers too- I think they were great in that they allowed people to start largely in the right places, whilst I passed people at the end, I wasn't passing swathes of people who had started too fast, as I usually do.  I would only suggest that perhaps the pacers should have more frequency, as a minute per mile is quite a big gap between, especially at the sharp end.   I'm sure that if they had set up groups that were going for a time, it may have been a bit more successful.  Especially as with conditions like that, running a dead even pace isn't the best strategy. 

All in all, a brilliant race, and the best Valentines day present EVER!!  Good job I am marrying that guy really ;)

Pitsford water with Sarah

It was stupid o'clock in the morning.  I had set the alarm for 6:30, but worried about not getting up in time, I was wide awake by 5:30, so I used the extra time to prepare my packed food for the day.  Porridge in its own Tupperware. Hopefully I would be able to find some milk and a microwave to prepare it.  A turkey bagel, some dates, a banana and a clementine and a drink of electrolyte water.

I set off at 7:15 for the drive to Oxford, knowing that I would still have to wait a long time for my run, and thus plenty of time to fuel. 

I have a termly meeting in Oxford, and as @mia79gbr was training for her Thames Trot 50 mile ultra marathon we figured we would use the opportunity of my being in the area to do a Riverside run.  Unfortunately recent flooding had put paid to that plan, and we decided instead to meet an hour north of Oxford to run around Pitsford water.

Christ Church meadow in Oxford, under a lot of water

After a busy morning of committee meeting minute taking whilst eating, and catching up with some old Uni friends, I jumped in the car for another hour of driving... So 3.5 hours of driving in total by this point.

We met in the carpark and it was a beautiful spring like day.  We didn't get going until after 2pm and it was mid-Janurary, so we didn't have a lot of daylight.  We had decided an easy first lap (7 miles) and then we could play with pace in the second lap... However, Sarah's easy, and my easy are quite different, so we ended up somewhere in between, plus I wasn't feeling great from not enough sleep and all that driving.  We seemed to do every mile in about 9:10 when my long run pace had been more like 9:50.... Very soon from starting I realised I was wearing too many clothses, so we decided we would have a pitstop to put my jacket in the car.  Sarah was using her super swanky ultra vest, so seemed to have storage for everything, but we completed the first 7 in

9:53 / 9:32 / 9:21 / 9:04 / 9:10 / 9:08 / 8:57

I was convinced I was going to bonk on the second half, but I also wanted to test my marathon and half marathon race paces when tired.  Perhaps this wasn't the best run to do this on, as it was only a few days after my 12x 400m session, which had been my first piece of speedwork in ages.  We were going to set off at marathon pace, but having forgotten to tighten my bumbag after removing a layer, I had to stop and faff, so we had a mile easy before going into MP then HMP.

9:50 / 8:31 (MP) / 8:03 (HMP). I found the HMP particularly impossible on that day, the wind had started to pick up a little, my tummy wasn't very happy, and Sarah was chatting away whilst I was struggling to breath... At the end of this faster section, I really did feel as if all the energy was sapped from my legs, so I didn't think that there would be much use in doing more increased pace work. Once I caught my breath I had to apologise to Sarah for not being able to talk during my marathon or half marathon paced efforts! We continued on for another couple of miles

9:13 / 9:27. And I took a gel to see me through.  As we were crossing the causeway, we finally stopped to take some pictorial evidence of us being there:

Sarah is BEHIND the camera... She's not a ghost!

We plodded through the final couple of miles, the photographic breather meant I could pick up again so we were at 9:18/8:50

In summary, a fast flat route, and excellent prep for Manchester, - Sarah had planned an awesome run, and what's more even though I mentally didn't think I could do that pace, I could, and as a result my long runs and medium long runs since have been completed at a faster pace - still conversational, but not annoyingly slow!

Next. We went to dinner, and I ate everything!!!

 

Yup, EVERYTHING