Four Villages Half Marathon

There are four running goals I would like to achieve before I turn 40:

1) sub 20 5K
2) sub 40 10K
3) sub 90 Half
4) sub 3 hour Marathon

Goal 1) was achieved in a parkrun last summer. My last Half resulted in a 1:33 with a big fade in the last 3 miles. Since then I had done a marathon training program for Chester and have done the first 6 weeks of another one so should be able to improve my time.

My 68 minute 10 miler in December gave my the confidence that a 7 min/mile pace could feel comfortable in a race. However to go under 90 mins in a Half you have to average 6:52 pace. Was I up to this? Sunday's Half Marathon would give me the chance to find out.

I got there almost an hour early but after queueing for the shuttle bus from the car park, queueing for the portaloo and queueing for the baggage drop there were only a few minutes left so no proper warm up for me.

Never mind, I warmed up by zigzagging around slow starters for the first half mile.

The route is pretty flat until mile 8 when it climbs for about 3 miles and then there is a steep descent to the finish. Therefore the plan was to maintain about 6:55 pace for the first ten miles and then blitz the last 3 miles.

The first 7 miles were a cruise. The sun was shining, the country roads were pleasant and I barely seemed to be breathing.

The 8th mile contained a climb and a 7:08 here made me wonder if I had started fading. However a 6:50 and a 7:00 over the next two miles put me back on track.

I thought that the course started dropping here but the 11th mile started with a nasty hill and the best I could do was another 6:50. I did wonder if the target was out of reach here as I needed two very quick miles. However the 12th mile dropped 180 feet resulting in a 6:15. Wahey! Now I had well over 7 mins for the last 1.1 miles so knew I was on track.

The 13th mile was a bit more undulating and only now did I want the race to end. However a 6:25 and a fast last 0.1 mile got me home in 1:29:19!

Milestone 3 complete! Going under 90 mins for the Half also means that I get a UK ranking. I am currently the 431st best Male Half Marathoner in the UK for 2014. Of course this will be more like 4000th by the end of the year but nice to get that first ranking.

I feel quite confident about achieving milestone 2 this summer if I do some speed work after the marathon.

However milestone 4 is something else entirely. Assuming I get 3:20 this year then taking 20 minutes off that time in one year is a big ask but you never know!

Looking back on the race it was a great course but the organisation was so so. I got the impression that this race had become rather overgrown and the organisers couldn't really cope with over 2000 people. Some people were queueing outside for over an hour after the race to get their bag back. If it had been wet and cold this would have been dangerous as they were still in their racing gear.

However I will be back next year to move that PB a little further down.