Birmingham Half Marathon Sunday 26 October 2008

what passes for a sprint finish nowadays . . and afterwards with C and our medals

Shortly after joining Tring Running Club in June, I got chatting with C whilst out on a club run, and we spoke of the two marathons that would take place in Birmingham later in the year. It turned out that we both planned to run them, and so the idea was sown that we would see if we could run them together.

We ran the Birmingham & Black Country Marathon, along the canal from Wolverhampton to Birmingham in July, and C got under 2 hours for the distance for the first time. Since then she'd gone to the anything but canal like Lake District and improved her ½ marathon pb in the Langdale Half. Meanwhile I struggled through a summer of illness and injury and as the first running of this new Birmingham Half approached, my participation was in doubt.

However I did have several reasons for really wanting to take part. Naturally, I didn't want to throw the £20 entry fee away. My first ever race was a Half in Birmingham, back in 1985 and I ran the one-off Birmingham Centenary Marathon in 1989. Not only that, I spent my teenage years growing up in Sutton Coldfield on Birmingham's doorstep. Lots of reasons to do it, but I also realised there was a view that I probably shouldn't be doing it at all.

I was determined to run sensibly and within myself. So I had 2 targets . . my v v pw of 2.37.23 at Bristol in 2001, when I paced a friend round her first ½ in atrocious weather . . and my pw of 2.13.37 at Wyre Forest in 2005 when I withered in the heat and on the hills. My aim was to finish somewhere in between them.

In the event I got round overcoming galloping gut rot and despite being forced to use a portaloo during a race for the first time in 23 years.

Training mileage in July 139m - training mileage in Aug, Sep and Oct 140m - last longish run was 12m on 13 Aug.

So I was wholly under cooked for this and therefore I wasn't disappointed with 2.08.58 . . it beat both my targets after all, and C got her 3rd ½ pb of the year with 1.55.15 which was nice.