Cologne and another PB (1h29m15s)

I must admit that this morning I was not expecting to be announcing a new PB after my injury last week and a lack of real training. However, it all seemed to come together during the run to make for almost a perfect race and a certain reality that sub 1.29 is really possible sometime soon.

The day began early with breakfast at 5.30 and a drive into Cologne to park near the Messe where the bag drop was. We were quite early and so had plenty of time to relax and prepare and, of course, to wait in the ubiquitous toilet queues. I was in the red starting box which was the first to start and I made my way into the middle of the box to avoid starting too quickly. I just wish that others would stay further back if they only want to start off at a jog! My friend was in the green box and took an unbelievable 38 minutes to cross the start line.

Most of the race was through the suburbs of Cologne with very few supporters, but in several places, there were huge crowds including the city Centre at Rudolf Platz and the cathedral (Cologne Dom). The final kilometre was across the Rhine bridge back to the Messe and finishing downhill.

So, how did I actually manage a PB only 2 weeks after Bristol. I certainly had not really intended to beat my previous time, although I was keen to beat 1.30 for the fourth time. Since it was a European half marathon, of course the course was marked with kilometres as opposed to miles and that meant I had to work out another strategy for keeping tabs on my pace apart from my watch. I now know very well that my Garmin watch (despite being excellent for training) can give dubious information in a race especially when running in a built up area. Cologne is pretty built up! So, I switched my watch over to metric units and worked out that keeping a pace of between 4.15-4.20 per km would keep me on schedule. I also decided that I would press my lap button as I reached each km marker and this proved invaluable in working out my real pace.

Here are my lap times:

(1) 4.15.6
(2) 4.15.6
(3) 4.15.6
(4) 4.15.6 (average over 4km as I did not press lap during this time)
(5) 4.12.5
(6) 4.12.6
(7) 4.09.8
(8) 4.15.9
(9) 4.08.7
(10) 4.15.2
(11) 4.15.2
(12) 4.16.9
(13) 4.12.9
(14) 4.12.9
(15) 4.16.6
(16) 4.14.7
(17) 4.16.7
(18) 4.16.0
(19) 4.12.6
(20) 4.15.7
(Finish) 1.29.15

I arrived in with a gun time of 1.29.59, which was a fantastic feeling as I finished the race.

After the race and meeting up with Katrin, we went back into the city to watch the leaders in the marathon finishing. It is amaxzing to see how fast the front runnbers can be running after a full 26 miles!

After leaving the finishing area, we went to a local pool/spa and I recovered with a swim and a sit in a hot tub which made for a relaxing and pleasant end to the day.

Bristol half marathon - home race advantage

The Bristol half was my first half marathon back in 2006 when I surprised myself with a 1h55m finish time after 12 weeks training from pretty much beginning. It is one of a few races that I have since completed every year (including the Bath half, and the runs on Boxing day and new years day). As such, it is a race favourite and always has plenty of support alongside the thousands of competitors.

This year, the Bristol race was scheduled a few weeks later than usual due to the barriers/toilets all being used for the Olympics earlier in the month (my thought anyway). This meant that the weather was a bit cooler than in previous races which was a pleasant surprise after last months awful race. We'd had some prediction of rain, but that held off for the day and I set out with my friend Simon at 7.15am to park up the car close to the race start. We met up with plenty of the other Portishead runners which I've missed in all of my other races and then made our way to the start for a 9.30am start.

I'd decided before the race that I would try to go out at 6.45 per mile and hope that I could keep it going for as long as possible. Well, the first seven miles were on a flat 'there and back' section along the Bristol Portway and I kept pretty much to schedule with miles at 6.48, 6.43, 6.43, 6.45, 6.41, 6.44 and 6.41. I even managed a 10km time (approx by my watch) of 41m52. The next section was over the Cumberland basin and back into the city itself where we ran past the Queens Square, Castle Green and Cabot Circus. I managed even to keep the pace steady with the following five miles at 6.46,6.45, 6.45, 6.40 and 6.48.

The last mile and a bit seemed to last a long while right through the centre of Bristol and back to the start/ finish area at @Bristol. My thirteenth mile was at 6.39 but I ended up with 0.29 of a mile after that at a rate of  6.11. The main problem with trying to run at a constant pace by your GPS watch, is that in built up areas like the centre of Bristol, it all goes a bit wrong and the last few miles must have been a bit in error to give the extra 0.19 miles on the total distance. Luckily, with a pace of 6.45, it still meant that I managed to thrash my previous PB.

Really looking forward to running in Cologne next month!