Race day at Great Malvern

The day started well with a quick look at the weather forecast. The rain from last night had gone and although the wind outside the window was sounding pretty strong, the forecast for Great Malvern implied a considerable drop in wind speed!

I've started to get a bit blasé about my packing for my half marathons and today I came unstuck - although I packed my kit, shoes, food and drink before setting out for (a drive of around 1 hour and 15 minutes) I forgot my GPS watch and only realised when I arrived at the Three Counties Showground car-park. There were loads of cars as, in addition to the half marathon, there were also 1km and 5km fun runs all starting at the same time which was quite nice as you had lots of families and children roaming around beforehand. The showground is used for agricultural shows and has massive cowsheds that we used as warm-up area and shelter from the wind and showers. It was certainly an interesting smell to start the race with!

Cowsheds at the showground

Without my watch, I was a bit worried about pacing myself so that I could achieve the 1.30 mark I was so anxious to beat! However, I had no choice as my watch was 60 miles away and so I worked out in my head the pace I wanted to stick to around the course and hope that the mile markers were in the right places. Working out multiples of 6.47 seemed a bit tricky, but 6.50 is not too bad and would see me through the line in under the 90 minutes.

The start was delayed about 15 minutes due to traffic entering the site and some problems with car parking (given the serious rain last night). So we got under-way at 10.45 and it was really starting to warm up despite a short shower of rain just before the start. The first mile was tricky as I did not really know the pace I was at, but when we went through the first mile marker in 6.56 I realised that I would need to speed up a little. I think I went slightly overboard on this and ended up going through 2 miles in around 13.25. That set the tone for the first 9 miles. I went through 5 miles in under 33 minutes, 6 miles in under 40 minutes and at 10 miles I was 45 seconds under my "6.50 time" at 1h07m45s.

The problem really came in the last three miles. From mile 10-12 we were pretty much running into the wind the whole way, with a steep little hill going into a tree lined avenue through which the wind just whistled. Suddenly my pace fell off a cliff and I ended up running from mile 10-12 in exactly 15 minutes. The last mile was slightly better, but did finish with a quarter mile run into the wind again to finish back in the showground. My time of 1h30m34s is my second fastest ever, but 20 minutes earlier, I was well on schedule for just over the 1.29 mark and I was a little bit disappointed. However, given the wind and warmth on the day, it really gives me significant hope that I will succeed in going well under 1.30 sometime this year. Perhaps the summer races will be difficult with the heat, but at least I should manage in one of the races later in the year!

After finishing (and consuming the supplied banana, cereal bar and bottle of water), and I was surprised to find that there was a live singer on a "BBC Hereford and Worcester" lorry stage. It is the first race that I have attended that the finishers are welcomed home by some really top rate singing.

I had an uneventful journey home and am now sat down writing this when I should either be out on a short walk or with my feet up.

Next weekend, I have both the Cotswold Way relay and an orienteering relay race so I don't have much time to rest. I'll have an easy week of training with maybe some speedwork or a tempo midweek and I'll write another blog post about the relays next weekend.