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Running the Bath Half Marathon

19th March 2006

Leading Up to the event

I have to be honest - training leading up to this event was not good to say the least! I trained well at the end of December and through January. In February, however, I caught a cold and the winter days seemed cold, long and never ending. I managed to keep up with the long runs each week and ran 10 miles 2 weeks prior to the event. I knew I wasn't as fit as I had been for the Bristol Half Marathon and so expected to take about 10 minutes longer to finish the race.

The Morning of the Event

On the morning of the Half Marathon I woke at 7:30am and had a banana and some nuts. The forecast was for cold and windy weather but at least no rain or snow was on the cards.

The Start

At the start I decided to stand in the 2:20 time mark. Following my experience at Bristol I realised it would be much better to be optimistic with the finishing time. It's much easier for other runners to overtake you than for you to overtake them. I passed the start line 3 minutes after the gun.

The Race

I got off to a good start and was feeling fairly comfortable. I took my MP3 player with me, which gave a great rendition of some Beatles tunes until disaster struck at mile 2 when the battery ran out. Lesson learned to take a spare battery with me next time!

At mile 3 I found I had been running for 30 minutes, therefore doing 10 minute miles. I knew this pace was too fast for me and I was in danger of burning out later in the race if I wasn't careful. I tried to slow down a little but it was hard as I also felt settled at this pace.

The main part of the Bath route consists of two laps of a large loop. Psychologically I thought it would be hard running the first lap knowing you have to do it all again. In training I had purposely run two loops for my longer runs in order to prepare myself mentally. This was a good move as it paid off in the race.

It was at mile 8 that the pain started to set in. At this point I tried to think of anything other than running to keep my mind occupied. At mile 10 and 11 I had aching legs and a strong easterly wind made running much harder. By mile 12 I was really struggling and it was one of the hardest miles I have ever run. The only thought that kept me going was that I knew if I walked I wouldn't be able to run again, and would end up in the humiliating position of walking in at the finish.

After the Event

I felt terrible! I have never felt so bad after finishing a run or race and just wanted to collapse on the ground. I managed to walk around for a few minutes and slowly ate some oat cakes, which helped me to feel a bit better. That evening and the following days I had aches in my legs and back. However the aches went away much more quickly than for the Bristol Half, which is really encouraging as my body is obviously getting stronger and quicker at repairing itself.

My Result

My position was 5071 out of 5993 people.
My chip time was 2:17:56

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