This is my first race of 2020 and I have to say, I have been getting serious FOMO seeing so many people posting about races on social media. I haven’t raced for four months and only raced 5 times since returning from Tokyo 11 months ago.

I have really been looking forward to racing hard this weekend and seeing what I can do and where my fitness is at. My training has all been gearing up for next months Manchester & Boston marathons but hasn’t quite gone to plan this past month after missing some sessions with niggles and then illness.

I am, however, feeling well-rested and ready to push hard and try to beat my 87:48 PB time. The plan is to go for a sub 85 but that is pretty dependent on the weather. The forecast looks like we are set for a cold one which won’t be an issue but possibly a little breezy, hopefully it isn’t a headwind for the most part.

Travel & Time in London:

With the race being held in London, I travelled down Saturday afternoon by train and started at the Hub by Premier Inn Goodge Street. I stayed here when I ran The Big Half in 2018 and it was pretty well situated and given I only paid £55 to stay in Central London, it was a bargain. Plus they have free coffee so hard to not come back and as runners, we are creatures of habit.

My pre race meal was the now traditional Pizza, I know most people swear by pasta for their carb loading but I just love pizza so any excuse and I am in there. It has served me well so far….unless I have totally been underachieving all these years.

As with all races and in fact all of my Sunday long runs, I lay out all of my gear and nutrition the evening before. That way I don’t have to worry about rushing around finding things in the morning and can relax and stay calm whilst getting ready and heading to the start area.

Alarm set for 6:15am.

Race Day:

I didn’t sleep well last night, I always struggle to sleep in a different bed and was tossing and turning all night, clocking 5hrs 27min of sleep. Not ideal but I am used to racing on a bad nights sleep, nothing a few coffee’s won’t sort out.

Breakfast was the now standard 2 pots of ready mix porridge in the hotel room before grabbing one of the free coffee on the way out.

I took the tube to London Bridge, getting there for just gone 7:40. Despite weeks of bad weather, we were blessed with a beautifully clear but crisp winters morning with a little breeze.

Bag drop was quick and efficient and the toilets by the bag drop were quick with no queues at that time, I suspect it was a lot busier later on which made me glad to have got there early.

I went over to the start corrals, I was in corral A which closed at 8:40am and due to go at 9am. There were more toilets in the corrals and again, as I was in there early, no queues. My pre-race toilet tactic is to go more times than you think you need, you don’t want to be wasting time having to stop for a pee mid-race or worse…. not making it to the toilet in time during the race.

As the corral was quite empty I spent 10 mins running laps of the corral to get warmed up and increase the heart rate. As things got busier I moved to the midpoint of the corral for some stretching. I didn’t think I was quick enough to be at the front so I self-seeded halfway back, self-doubt kicking in again there.

It was cold standing there waiting to go, I was wearing an old long-sleeved top over my race gear to give a little extra warmth but as soon as that came off, it felt COLD!! Let’s get running and warm up.

The past few weeks, the training hasn’t gone to plan. Having little niggles and illness’ I haven’t run over 10 miles for a good while but things have improved this week so the plan is to go out hard, pick it up from mile 8 and finish strong. The first 7 miles @ 6:35min/mile, final 6 miles @ 6:30min/mile.

Mile 1 – 7: 6:31, 6:36, 6:32, 6:33, 6:26, 6:33, 6:27

The first mile felt like I overtook at least a thousand runners. I know you go out a little slower than planned but omg the closing speeds on some people were crazy, I nearly ran in the back of 5 or 6 people, why they are in corral A and messing around running so slowly is beyond me, if you are going to run slow drop back to a later corral or at least hang to the back of your current corral.

Anyway, rant over! once through the two miles I was able to find a more consistent pace. The 6:35min/mile goal pace felt easy and I kept having to check myself and bring the pace back. I was happy it felt good at this stage but didn’t want to go too fast and risk blowing up in the second half.

I also knew that the first 3 miles were running with a tailwind before turning and coming back into the wind before crossing London Bridge at mile 8, so I wanted to be sure I felt fresh for those 4 miles.

It turned out that the wind wasn’t that bad, there were pockets between buildings where you would catch a good gust but after a while, I picked up on this and would drop in behind someone when I saw gaps between the buildings. Let them take the hit from the wind and I will shelter behind them.

I used this tactic across London Bridge as well, I was expecting the wind to be more of a factor blowing over the river and sheltered in at the back of a pack of 5.

I crossed the bridge having hit all of the mile splits just slightly under the 6:35 goal and felt good.

Now comes the hard work, time to pick up the pace and bring it home.

Mile 8 – 13.1: 6:28, 6:25, 6:28, 6:26, 6:26, 6:20, 5:37 (0.1)

Now into the second half, I picked up the pace which in reality just meant not holding back like in the first half. I was running at a more natural and constant pace which you can see in the splits from mile 7 – 12 (yes, I went a mile early). Now not having to check myself, I felt more comfortable and it felt easier.

I often find that running at a slower pace is more difficult than running at your natural pace.

Things were going well and the miles were ticking off without incident. Today, I was experimenting with taking a SiS Electrolyte gel every 25mins instead of every 30mins. This was the first time I had tried taking them more frequently and was interested to see two things. How my body coped with taking them closer together and whether I would keep going at race pace and not have performance dips between gels.

I think the new approach worked, 13.1 miles is too short to say whether I would use this for the upcoming marathons but today’s race I felt strong and had no stomach issues but I am used to the gels and 5 mins earlier shouldn’t have a massive impact on the body.

It wasn’t until mile 11 where I felt a little fatigued and like I was now working to stay on pace. There were times I would look at my watch and see 6:33 and have to push on a little to dip back onto target. I wasn’t prepared to let the pace slip now. The last gel at 75mins helped get me through the last 2 miles and I felt strong again, whether the gel actually has that much effect or its the mind tricking my body into feeling strong, who cares. I felt strong and was hitting the pace.

The last mile went by in a fast, I wanted to push it hard, going into mile 13 I was considering putting the hammer down and running a sub 6 min mile but held off until 12.8 miles then picked it up slightly, nothing too drastic but I ran my fastest mile at the end and sprinted as hard as I could through the final 200m. I could see from the race clock that I was close to the 1:25.

I crossed the line in 1:24.35 taking 3:19 off my PB from CHESHIRE HALF MARATHON 6 months ago.

 

Brief roundup:

So pleased to be back racing and able to go into a race knowing I can target a PB. This was the first time since my calf injury last year where I have felt confident enough to target a PB and it’s so good to be back in that kind of health and fitness after so many months out injured.

Running a sub 85 half marathon was something I didn’t think I would ever get close to two years ago. I was struggled to get close to 90mins so to come back from injury and push that to just under 88mins in September and now 84:35 in March is something I am really proud of.

I am also proud that I had a race plan and I executed it and ran a good strong negative split finishing with my fastest mile.

The fact I crossed the line and didn’t feel that bad and like I had more to give is a big confidence booster that I can run a lot faster than today.

Today was all about getting back into racing and crossing that 85min barrier, next time I race a half, I can push it hard and see how fast I can run.

My strategy of running the first 7 miles @ 6:35 and the second 6 miles @ 6:30 went well and was manageable. I was also aiming for rough 5k splits of 20mins and hit that really well.

• 5k – 20:20
• 10k – 19:57
• 15k – 19:58
• 20k – 20:10
• 21k 4:10

I also met up with some of the other Purdue Performance members who were running The Big Half today. As I train 100% by myself in the countryside and 9 times out of 10 don’t see another human whilst out, it is great and so refreshing to meet up with friends at these races and so inspiring hearing their stories and seeing them smashing their PB’s and running goals.