Worksop Half Marathon

Today was another stop off on the journey of attempting to run a Half Marathon in under 1 hr and 50 minutes. Having run the Robin Hood Half last month and getting 1.53 have been determined to beat that and take my PB down into the 1.40's.

I arrived in Worksop then with a plan to better my Robin Hood time and then take that to the flat Norwich Half Marathon in three weeks time and get the time that I wanted.

There was no way that I was going to get it today as the Worksop Half is notoriously hilly with a whopping 186m of climbing within the 13.1 miles of the route - I would have to have a good day to trouble even the Nottingham time....but this is how it went.....

J'arrive !

Nice and early having taken just 40 minutes to drive from Lincoln. We found street parking just 30 metres or so from a car park and in the process saved ourself a gargantuan £1.20 !! A ten minute walk, if that, into the centre of Worksop then followed and then we found the registation area - things ran like clockwork and I very quickly had my race number and timing chip. I had a jog around to warm up trying to look like I knew what I was doing and then joined the queue for the toilets - big mistake, as there were clearly not enough toilets for the amount of competitors and the queues moved very slowly - to fix this the orgainsers could have organised stand ups for the chaps but hey ho ! When I eventually managed to 'get in and out' as it were, and had about a minute to get myself down to the start. Seeding myself towards the front of the sub 2 I managed to filter myself in from the footpath as the Klaxon went to signal the start of the race.

The race

I had been told that the first mile of the race was uphill and that is true, but forgivingly its not steep and it comes right at the start so with adrenaline still pumping my pace was better than expected. My runners world pace band said 8.42 and I was little over 9 so no panic - I knew the first mile would be slower as the pack had still not settled down. Mile 2 was undulating, but the faster downhills meant that I picked up good time here and manged to get myself into credit against my target pace !

Miles 3 to 5 continued to undulate and to be honest I enjoyed the downhill sections but was getting a little fed up looking ahead to see a sea of bobbing heads going upwards !

I got through 6 miles in 49 minutes or so which is only a minute outside my PB 10k time - no wonder then that it felt like hard work. At this point we were in Clumber Park for the middle section of the race - and parts looked very familiar from the Duathlon earlier in the year. This was better too, with not many if any hills, just 'deceptive' flats as I recall.

At mile 9 , I began to feel tired and my pace dropped a touch - which I think was down to the earlier battering my legs took on the hills and the fast start. At mile 10, my ankle started to feel painful and I think it cramped up - this meant that I had to stop a couple of times to stretch it out and give it a wiggle ! This helped and I was soon on my way again and even managed to chase down Elvis during this section - uh uh !!!!

During the eleventh mile , I finished the last of my gel, and thought another runner asked me what I was doing - in fact it was David Greenwell and we ran together past the mile 12 marker, but Davids pace was a little too fast for me and I dropped back from him. The last mile as previously mentioned is all downhill and I tried to blast it as much as I could. There was nothing left in the tank by the time I turned the corner for home , but was elated to be under 1.50 for the first time, crossing the line in 1.48.18. That is a further 5 minutes off my PB, and 26 mins for the year.

I found the t shirt to be great and must applaud the work of the marshalls and the organisers for a great race.

Whats next ? Well theres the No Walk 5k next Saturday and the a cycle sportive in the Yorkshire Dales the week after. I am tempted to give Norwich a miss now but will make a decision on that later in the week.

BUPA Great Yorkshire Run

I've had a little bit of a hazardous weekend if truth be told:

Firstly I played Golf yesterday morning which can have a bad effect on my back, and secondly and more dangerously, I had a night out at the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' last night, where I dressed up as main protagonist Frank n Furter complete with high heels - that was a sprained ankle waiting to happen I can tell you.

It was with some relief then, that I managed to rock up this morning in Sheffield to compete in my second Great Yorkshire Run, the first having been completed in September of last year. On that occasion I was a white wave runner, very much centre of the pack, but this year having had a great season of improving times, I found myself in the first wave of starters for the first time - the orange wave. The plan today was simple - run as hard as I could over the first 9 kilometres to lessen the effect of the PB killing hills in the last stretch that dampened last years performance. To assist with this, I made my own pace band http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/racing/runners-world-pace-band-generator/3918.html which if I followed it correctly would give me a PB.

We walked to the start area, and after using the world most indiscreet open air stand ups, I joined my fellow wave runners for our 10.00am start. The professional athletes were introduced to the masses along with todays celebrity - Life On Mars very own Ray Carling, actor Dean Andrews - a much better celebrity scalp than last years effort.

We were soon moving forward, and then jogging, and then back walking, and then finally over the start line and away ! The pace was immediately fast, and knowing that this was downhill, tried to make the most of it in the first kilometre. My pace band told me that I needed a 4.58 first km, but was delighted with a 4.37 effort. Things calmed down a little bit and I was able to settle at a hard pace but a manageable one as we passed the 2nd kilometre marker and entered the effectively 6k out and back section of the race along a dual carriageway to the Hillsborough stadium. This section went very smoothly, I was disappointed though that there was not a big screen this year at the turnaround as there had been last year - to make up for this though I did notice the Hillsborough stadium, which last year I was completely oblivious to even though it is massive !

The first half of the race passed in around 23-24 mins which was good pacing, the second half of the race though was tougher and I found that even slight inclines were hard work. I managed to keep the pace constant though and as we made our way back to Sheffield City Centre there was no real slippage in the time that I had in the bank ahead of plan and I ran hard to make sure that this did not happen. Just before 9km, the first climb came and went and there was time to recover with a downhill, before the PB killer came up. I tackled this head on and although the pace dropped considerably I continued to attack it and although a lost half a minute by my reckoning, I was still able to cross the finish line in 48.26 - a new PB by over a minute and I can't be anything over than delighted with that.

Overall then, 834th on the day and in the top 17th percentile of finishers - the kind of performance that I just want to keep improving on. Next up for me is the Worksop Half Marathon on the 30th - and until then I will be giving some though to some goals for the rest of the year and some for 2012.