A year ago today I ran the Hackney Half Marathon – my first race at that distance (actually only my second true race at any distance). I was fit – a week before I’d done the Finsbury Park Parkrun in 23 minutes and 17 seconds, a PB I am yet to beat. I felt great at the start and ran fast – too fast, as I even knew at the time but couldn’t get myself to slow down properly. I ran the first 10km in what was, until a month ago, my PB. If I had kept that up I’d have finished somewhere at around 1 hour 50 minutes.
By 15km I was slowly badly, by 17km I was desperate. By 19km I could run no more and was walking. I did run most of the last 1000 metres and I certainly ran over the line, but I was in a terrible state and nearly fainted. The finishing time – 2 hours 15 minutes – was a real disappointment, but at least I had done it. But never again, surely.
My second run at this distance was the Royal Parks Half Marathon last October. For the first 10km I followed the 1 hour 55 minutes pacer but after that I couldn’t keep up – I had not prepared as well for this race as the Hackney half and that fundamental lack of fitness had let me down, but still I wasn’t doing too badly.
Coming into the final mile both my legs buckled. I knew I had to walk. After a few hundred metres I tried running again only to get a very painful attack of cramp. I walked to about the 800 metres-to-go mark and started running again, slowly. I made it over the line. But whereas I’d got to 20k in 2 hours and a minute, it was 2 hours and 12 minutes before I finished.
And now I had really injured myself quite badly. Not badly as in get to hospital but badly as in blisters on both feet (don’t rely on Nike’s running socks), bad chafing – something like this
Roll around 2015 and two big pieces of technology come into my life. Firstly the Garmin Forerunner 10
So, last week I ran the St. Albans Half Marathon. I had a realistic target – a 5′ 50″ per kilometre pace – and a means to judge whether I was hitting it or not. That wouldn’t take me under two hours, but it would take me close and it was realistic and achievable on what was a very tough course. I prepared properly – tapering even when I wanted to run. And I did it: 2 hours, 3 minutes and 34 seconds – a 5′ 50″ pace.
I still made mistakes – too fast (about 5′ 40″ pace) for much of the start and running the end in a semi-zombified state due to, fundamentally, mental weakness. But it was good.
Even better – I’ve run 30km in the last week – so no injuries.
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