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.