Had a fantastic weekend in the New Forest - I broke 2 hours for the Half Marathon for the first time, and Sophie successfully completed her first full marathon in a shade under 5 hours, while her sister sliced nearly 15 minutes off her marathon PB.
The day started cold but bright, with a north-easterly breeze. The half marathon started at 0930 so I made the assembly area by 0850 leaving plenty of time to queue for the toilet and get my bearings. Bit of a scare as I did a bit of jogging on the spot to get warmed up and my right calf twinged... I stretched it gingerly but it still didn't feel good. 40 minutes of hanging around in the cold didn't do much for my muscles and I was relieved when we finally inched towards the start on Station Road in New Milton.
There were 2300 entrants to the Half but it felt relatively uncrowded, and the other runners were predominantly serious runners, with running club vests in evidence and a happy absence of iPods. A brief countdown and we were off. I'd stood in the :105-120 minute band but was taken by surprise by the pace at the start and was quickly overtaken by a lot of people. However given the cold temperature, my twinging calf and the uphill start I figured I should take it easy for at least the first mile, and I passed the marker in 9:50. Perhaps a little slower than I'd ideally intended and as the terrain levelled off I stepped up the pace a little, covering mile 2 in 9:05.
Sometime during the next mile I reached the first downhill stretch and I decided just to relax and go with the slope - I continued to do this and it meant the next two miles disappeared rapidly in a very speedy (for me) 15:54.
By this point the scenery had really opened up and we were into the New Forest proper, with scattered pine trees, heathland shrubs, and the occasional New Forest pony to admire. Mile 5 brought the first and steepest hill of the run which slowed my pace to 10:16 for the mile, my slowest mile of the race. But with the hill over, I sped up and covered mile 6 in 8:53 and had my first jaffa cake (my current fuel of choice) to celebrate. Six miles in 53:43 was actually marginally ahead of my plan (whose ultimate target was to complete the race in 1 hour 55).
Around this time I caught up with a walker - yes someone walking at 9 minute mile pace ! Clearly he was more than just an amateur out for a stroll and it was fascinating to watch his rhythm as he overtook runners both going downhill and uphill. A little demoralising not to be able to burn him up though - he kept pace with me for quite a distance.
The water stations on the course were dispensing water in cups, which meant it was tough to drink on the run so I decided to just stop for the duration of the stops. It didn't slow me down much and it was more comfortable to drink. The weather wasn't hot but it was sunny and I didn't want to get dehydrated.
I knew that there was a long slow incline at the 8 mile mark and a shorter one around 9.5 miles, so I'd decided to keep a bit in reserve for those. Mile 7, which included another downhill, I covered in 8:35. I then waited for the "big hill" as it appeared on the course profile, but it turned out to be a very shallow gradient, and I covered miles 8 and 9 in 9:32 and 9:43. I reached mile 10 in 1:31:04, now a little behind schedule and needing to cover the last 5km/3.1 miles in 24 minutes to beat my 1hr 55 target. A tall order, but my plan had always been to get to mile 10 with a bit in reserve and then step up the pace as the terrain levelled off and headed back to the finish.
The first part of the plan went well, with mile 11 going past in 9:03, and mile 12 in 8:59, but the last mile, along a long straight road with the finish line out of sight around a corner seemed to last forever, and not only was I clearly not going to beat 1hr 55, but getting under 2 hours looked unlikely. Fortunately though, my parents- and brother-in-law were waiting around 200 metres from the finish and their shouts of encouragement helped me over the line just as the clock ticked past 2 hours, and I stopped my watch at 1:59:37, a time later confirmed by the chip timing system.
So - my first sub 2 hour half marathon - Just ! A great feeling. My sixtargets for the race had been, in order:
Beat 1:55
Run 9 minute miles (= 1:58 approximately)
Beat 2 hours
Beat my previous best (2:04:20)
Run all the way
Finish
so I'd managed to achieve 4 of them. A pretty good performance. I think I could have beaten 1:55 if I'd been able to do a little more midweek training in the runup to the race but sadly that was not to be.
I didn't quite manage a negative split - 0:58:52 vs 1:00:45 - perhaps I should have saved a little more for the last 3 miles. But I didn't tie up as badly towards the end as I did at Milton Keynes, and overall I'm very pleased with my efforts. I really enjoyed the race - beautiful scenery, well marshalled event, friendly fellow runners, and a small enough field to allow everyone to just... run.
After meeting my in-laws, having a bit of a stretch, a change of clothes and a spot of lunch, I walked back to the 25 mile mark to wait for my wife and sister-in-law, both running in the full marathon which had set off 3o minutes behind me. My sister-in-law ran strongly finished in 4:10, beating her already good London time back in April by 13 minutes, and then my wife, in her first marathon, came home in a really excellent 5:02 - even more creditable since she'd had a bit of knee trouble in the run-up to the race.
So... all round, a fantastic day.
The last couple of weeks of running, including the New Forest race, has brought my total for September to just over 70 miles, and for the year the total is now 638.6 miles.
