That was hard! Suppose any race where I’m aiming for a goal close to my limit is going to be hard but this was supposedly a goal that should be comfortably within my reach. I guess I discuss that a bit further on...
As the photo shows, it was a glorious sunny day for this (and a comfortable temperature too).
Anyhow, my goal was to complete the HM within two hours. Plan was to run the first 1k at a relaxed pace then up my pace to 5:35 /k and hold there, maybe giving it some more effort over the last 5k if I felt up to it.
As planned, I started off at an easy pace, picking up to target pace after the first 1k. If anything, my pace was then a little faster than target but I was still running at a comfortable pace, my average hitting 5:30 which gave me a comfortable margin for later on in the race.
It felt like there was a steady climb from 9k to 10.5k. Looking at the Strava trace, it’s actually an up and down over a river bridge followed by a flat then a climb of 10m over 500m for a total ascent of around 15m. Not really a lot of climbing but I tend to ease back on the climbs to save energy so it knocked my average pace a bit. Not enough to put me into the “red zone” but it eroded my comfortable margin. The last 16k of the course consists of two loops of the same circuit so I knew I’d have to repeat the climb (and I’d seen what the finish climb was like!)
So, by 17.5k, I was back on the climbing section with all my margin used up. OK, some of the perceived climb was psychological but it still had a detrimental effect on my pace. I gave it what I could but didn’t feel I had it in me to recover my average pace so I realised I wasn’t going to make my two hour target. Then I turned into the finish section!
The finish is a climb of 15m over 200m. Without a doubt, it’s the steepest part of the course and not what you want at the end of an HM. I resorted to running it at a sustainable effort. It’s unfortunate that the end of the climb isn’t visible for most of the way up. With 50m to go, the course turns off the hill onto a flat section to the finish. That’s where I gave it everything I had left.
My watch and the provisional results give exactly the same time which show that I achieved my goal with 14 seconds to spare! Had hoped for a bigger margin than that buy, hey, goal achieved!
Next up is the Newport Marathon somewhere around March next year. Before that though, I’m going to ease back for a while. Should help my knee tendonitis settle down (it’s not a problem whilst I’m running but it would be good to sort it).
The total climb for this was 76m. About a month ago, I ran a local 10k with an average pace of 5:28 /k (giving a chip time of 54:15) and that had 95m of climbing. Wasn’t organised enough to write a race report for that but it did suggest that I was on for a good time on today’s HM. Maybe I was a bit under the weather today. It would be nice to be able to run a sub two hour HM without having to put so much effort in. Maybe if I add some longer runs to my training that would help. Although, right now, I’m easing back for a bit.
Planning to progress to HM distance
Taking the plunge towards a HM
Galloway style HM and marathon training
First time HM distance