My first one ever actually! Leicestershire Half Marathon at Prestwold Hall.
The race started in front of the hall in the gardens, there was a great atmosphere and buzz about the place, which made me realise why people do these events. Before I got to the event village I will admit to thinking why did I get up so early, drive for 30 mins, and queue to use a portaloo when I could’ve set off from the comfort of my own home on my own time?
The race started with everyone walking two by two towards the start line roughly in order of expected finish time. It was all pretty efficient to be honest and I think the COVID protocols seemed to be working pretty well.
My plan was to run the first half of the race at 6:15min/km, the average pace for my last half then decide half way whether to push on or just get to the finish. Although it was much hotter than any of my training runs I was feeling good at half way so I did pick up the pace for the final 10K.
It would be fair to say I gave it everything I had yesterday. When I looked at my Garmin stats I was pretty close to my max heart rate on several occasions! The photo is from the finish and whilst I don’t exactly look fresh (and you can see the aftermath of the gel I spilled down my front at the 5miles mark 🤦🏻♀️) I’m pleased that I still had a little left for a “sprint” of sorts to the line. The gravel made that particularly difficult!
My official finish time was 2:10:26- a pb by around 3 mins although I’m a little gutted about those 26 seconds! That said Garmin recorded my distance as 21.3 km so perhaps I should have taken the corners tighter 😂
For everyone waiting for events that have been postponed there is hope and it will be so worth it once you get there!
Training at race pace or racing at training pace
Manchester Marathon Race Report
My first real race (GSR)