Eyam Half Marathon

This morning was a nice early drive over to Derbyshire to run the Eyam Half Marathon in the peak district. I knew the race would be a tough one but I'm starting to look at races like these as I have my eye on qualifying for a place at Zofingen in September and that course has climbing in it, albeit likely not as much as this morning but all the same, running up hills (like Kate Bush) is going to be good practice. 

The race itself was slightly delayed from its 10.30 start as the numbers hadn't arrived, a first, but not a huge delay and we were away at 10.45 in any case. I did my usual 10 minute easy run warm up with a couple of half arsed strides and lined up dead last, understanding that it was chip timed, and the road was nice and wide so I could wind my way through and not be swamped when the climbing started at about 600 metres. 

This worked well, and initially it was fast back through Eyam until a sharp right took us up a tester of an early climb just to turn back down and this made a little loop. Early thoughts... I was OK going up, but sketchy coming down especially in the alpha flys and I needed to be careful. 

We then began the longer climb up to the Glider Club at Great Hucklow Wood - a road I knew from the work Sportives albeit in reverse. I was steady for the long slow descent as on a couple of occasions a scuff would remind me that I had to have my wits about me with these shoes and take care I did. I lost the places that I had gained on the climb, but overall my pacing was good and the scenery was fantastic.  Not a PB effort by any means and running after climbing was hard work. 

At 9 miles we were at the bottom of a descent and had arrived at Leadmill, where we were abruptly guided right and up a frankly rude climb that went on and on for a good while, flattening out and dragging on sometimes only slightly. At 12 miles though, it was mostly down hill and fast, and again I was careful until I got back into Eyam centre and really opened up through the town and through to the finish. 

Beforehand I secretly hoped of sub 1.50, but climbing was better than expected and going downhill was tempered but not overly slow, so I finished with 1.43.33.

Happy with that !