Vale of Pewsey Half Marathon
Yesterday I competed in the Pewsey Half Marathon, my final race at that distance before the New Forest Marathon in September.
I had been looking forward to it for some time - the last half I did was the Gloucester half marathon at the end of July, and since then have been doing mainly long runs on my own (Andy and I did the Swindon half marathon route as a training run last weekend, which made a nice change) and to be fair, these can get pretty boring, and lonely. So it was nice to be in a race environment again.
I may have overdone it on the carb-loading the day before. As well as my customary pre-race dinner of pasta bolognaise and garlic bread, I managed to polish off a bag of popcorn and a whole bag of jelly babies in the cinema. The film this time was "Severance", a horror comedy which, while not in the same league as "Shaun of The Dead", certainly had its moments. I also went to see "Harsh Times" in the week, which I thought was excellent.
So despite being rather full I slept well and woke up early feeling unusually alert. I had my scrambled eggs on toast and headed to the gym to meet Andy, who is becoming my race buddy, which is quite cool. Always good to have some company, especially on the journey there and back.
We got to Pewsey in time and sorted out our race numbers. Andy was entering on the day and I had entered online which meant (unusually) that I had to pick up my race number on the day. Putting my race number on my vest is something I always do the night before, so not too happy about having to mess around with safety pins before the race.
Time for a quick warm-up, then we headed for the start line, where we met my brother-in-law Rich, who was competing in his first half-marathon. I advised him just to go out and enjoy it, and not worry about the time. It was great to see Mick & Phil (see my article on the Gloucester half marathon) again at the start, and later during the race.
Andy ran with me for the first mile to warm up. During this stage of the race a good-looking young marshal (female, I hasten to add) caught my eye, smiled and said "Well done". No one says well done to you that early on, only later when you look like you're flagging, so that gave me a lift. The weight loss is paying huge dividends already.
Andy pressed on soon enough, and rightly so - you've got to run your own race really, and he wanted to get a PB. I focused on just enjoying the race, and the lovely scenery.
It's difficult to think of any particular memories as the time went very quickly. I managed to maintain a good pace and at no point did I feel especially tired. In fact, for the first time it didn't feel like a half marathon, I felt good and in control all the way round. Normally I would start to tire at around the 10 or 11-mile marker but not this time. In fact I managed to accelerate if anything, realising that I stood to knock a good chunk of time off my previous best of 1 hour 57 minutes.
There was a bit of an unfortunate incident around the 11-mile marker. Another runner made a habit of running literally a few inches behind me and no matter how many times I stared at the position of his feet, he didn't get the message and would not either overtake or back off. In the end I stepped out to my right and stopped abruptly so that he went straight into me - and judging by the size of him I'd say it hurt him a lot more than it did me. It was an odious thing to do really, but hopefully he will have learnt from it and will think twice about making other runners feel uncomfortable in future.
Anyway, I wasn't going to dwell on that and was very, very happy to finish in 1 hour 51 minutes 40 seconds - knocking a whopping six minutes off my personal best. More importantly, I still felt strong, which has given me a massive and very timely confidence boost - the next time I pass the 10 mile marker, there won't be 3 miles to go, there'll be 16..
Andy was pleasantly surprised not to be waiting as long as he had anticipated for me, and he too had knocked 7 minutes off his PB. We set off walking to meet Rich, who finished his first half marathon in a highly creditable 2 hours 30 minutes. He felt he could have finished in a better time, but as I told him, there'll be plenty of opportunities to improve his time.
And so home - before we went I was cheeky enough to ask for an extra t-shirt! Not unreasonably I felt - if I carry on losing the weight a medium will fit me nicely before long. In fact it fits quite well. If anything the large is hanging off me..which should give a few clues why my time improved so much..
I managed another run in the evening - only 7 miles instead of the planned 10 or 12 miles - I had an upset stomach which flared up all of a sudden. I've been practically teetotal these last few weeks, but seeing as it was the bank holiday weekend decided to celebrate the new PB with a few glasses of wine.
After all, I intend to celebrate in style in 3 weeks time, so probably not a bad idea to have a quick rehearsal.
Copyright © Jonathan Weedon August 2006
I had been looking forward to it for some time - the last half I did was the Gloucester half marathon at the end of July, and since then have been doing mainly long runs on my own (Andy and I did the Swindon half marathon route as a training run last weekend, which made a nice change) and to be fair, these can get pretty boring, and lonely. So it was nice to be in a race environment again.
I may have overdone it on the carb-loading the day before. As well as my customary pre-race dinner of pasta bolognaise and garlic bread, I managed to polish off a bag of popcorn and a whole bag of jelly babies in the cinema. The film this time was "Severance", a horror comedy which, while not in the same league as "Shaun of The Dead", certainly had its moments. I also went to see "Harsh Times" in the week, which I thought was excellent.
So despite being rather full I slept well and woke up early feeling unusually alert. I had my scrambled eggs on toast and headed to the gym to meet Andy, who is becoming my race buddy, which is quite cool. Always good to have some company, especially on the journey there and back.
We got to Pewsey in time and sorted out our race numbers. Andy was entering on the day and I had entered online which meant (unusually) that I had to pick up my race number on the day. Putting my race number on my vest is something I always do the night before, so not too happy about having to mess around with safety pins before the race.
Time for a quick warm-up, then we headed for the start line, where we met my brother-in-law Rich, who was competing in his first half-marathon. I advised him just to go out and enjoy it, and not worry about the time. It was great to see Mick & Phil (see my article on the Gloucester half marathon) again at the start, and later during the race.
Andy ran with me for the first mile to warm up. During this stage of the race a good-looking young marshal (female, I hasten to add) caught my eye, smiled and said "Well done". No one says well done to you that early on, only later when you look like you're flagging, so that gave me a lift. The weight loss is paying huge dividends already.
Andy pressed on soon enough, and rightly so - you've got to run your own race really, and he wanted to get a PB. I focused on just enjoying the race, and the lovely scenery.
It's difficult to think of any particular memories as the time went very quickly. I managed to maintain a good pace and at no point did I feel especially tired. In fact, for the first time it didn't feel like a half marathon, I felt good and in control all the way round. Normally I would start to tire at around the 10 or 11-mile marker but not this time. In fact I managed to accelerate if anything, realising that I stood to knock a good chunk of time off my previous best of 1 hour 57 minutes.
There was a bit of an unfortunate incident around the 11-mile marker. Another runner made a habit of running literally a few inches behind me and no matter how many times I stared at the position of his feet, he didn't get the message and would not either overtake or back off. In the end I stepped out to my right and stopped abruptly so that he went straight into me - and judging by the size of him I'd say it hurt him a lot more than it did me. It was an odious thing to do really, but hopefully he will have learnt from it and will think twice about making other runners feel uncomfortable in future.
Anyway, I wasn't going to dwell on that and was very, very happy to finish in 1 hour 51 minutes 40 seconds - knocking a whopping six minutes off my personal best. More importantly, I still felt strong, which has given me a massive and very timely confidence boost - the next time I pass the 10 mile marker, there won't be 3 miles to go, there'll be 16..
Andy was pleasantly surprised not to be waiting as long as he had anticipated for me, and he too had knocked 7 minutes off his PB. We set off walking to meet Rich, who finished his first half marathon in a highly creditable 2 hours 30 minutes. He felt he could have finished in a better time, but as I told him, there'll be plenty of opportunities to improve his time.
And so home - before we went I was cheeky enough to ask for an extra t-shirt! Not unreasonably I felt - if I carry on losing the weight a medium will fit me nicely before long. In fact it fits quite well. If anything the large is hanging off me..which should give a few clues why my time improved so much..
I managed another run in the evening - only 7 miles instead of the planned 10 or 12 miles - I had an upset stomach which flared up all of a sudden. I've been practically teetotal these last few weeks, but seeing as it was the bank holiday weekend decided to celebrate the new PB with a few glasses of wine.
After all, I intend to celebrate in style in 3 weeks time, so probably not a bad idea to have a quick rehearsal.
Copyright © Jonathan Weedon August 2006
posted by Jon | 7:40 pm
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