Made it this time

Well, 2nd time lucky I actually made it to this weekends race (now the first of my 2009 season) which was the Watford Half marathon (http://www.watfordharriers.org.uk/WhindexF.htm). I had to get the train at half 6 in the morning (which meant getting up ever earlier and having breakfast in the dark so as not to wake sleeping housemates) but it wasn’t too bad and it was a smooth trip out there via Kings Cross and Euston. The weather was cold (around 0 degrees C) and windy but not as bad as it could have been. I found race HQ OK and was actually there quite early so sat around and read my book for bit.

I headed out around 10:20 for the start at 10:30. I was in two minds whether to run in my running jacket or not but in the end I decided I may as well as it does keep the wind off. It’s a Cheap Flora London marathon one which I bought last year after my first marathon. I quite like it. It’s not the most fancy but it was a very good price and it’s tough. It’s also nice to have in one when you bump into other people wearing them at races (which happens a fair bit). Anyway we all lined up and off we went. I wasn’t sure what the race would be like as I’ve never been to Watford but it was actually quite scenic. You go round a park and then out into the Countryside. Annoyingly once I had decided to keep my jacket on the sun came out so I got a bit hot (but I was glad of it at the end of the race when the snow and wind picked up). In fact I wish I could have spent more time looking at the scenery, but alas we were going to quick to really appreciate it. It's kind of like that advert for some opticians or other where the chap is wandering around in the forest and takes a picture with his eyes every so often. That would be really cool, but I digress.

My overall time was 1:34.01 (according to the provisional results). It is not my best time for the distance but not my worst and it was a very hilly course so maybe it is not so bad. It puts me 316th out of 1958 so I guess I can be happy with that (top time was ~1:08). Actually I was a bit disappointed as I was flying round the first half of the course and for a minute it looked like I might break 1:30 but I flagged in the latter half even though I tried to give it my all. I think I should have taken some gels or something to keep me going as I only really had water. I did take some of the Gatorade they gave out on the way round but it was so cold it almost felt like it was burning my throat. Well OK that might be a bit of an exaggeration but I did not like the sensation so didn't take more than one or two gulps. It started to snow very gently near the end but not really very much but as I say I was glad of my jacket then. I went straight back to race HQ and grabbed my stuff and headed for the station afterwards anyway just in case and made it back to Cambridge by 3pm (which even gave me time to get to Sainsbury’s and get the shopping in).

Training in the week leading up to the race was also good. Three, ~hour long runs in the week; three, hour long swims and 5, 1,5 hour long workouts, plus the 30 mile run last week gave a total of about 17 hours in training. Not too shabby. I would have done 4 runs in the week but I had a couple of things come up that I couldn’t get out of (and didn’t want anyway as one was a friends leaving do and one got me a free lunch in Clare Hall).

We’ll see how it goes this week. Hopefully I will be able to continue to avoid meat; I’ve been getting a real desire for a fried breakfast recently.

Till next time happy running everyone.