Tough HM for me today. I think we had all the types of winter weather in one morning. It was snowing in my warm up. This became hail and sleet in the early stages of the race. In the second half it was just rain. It was cold and windy the whole time!
The first four miles were solid, all around 6:20. The course then goes gently uphill for 3 miles and my pace slipped to 6:3x. The road was covered in slush which was slippery underfoot so most runners ran through the water streams for better grip. This obviously meant that socks and shoes got heavy.
The 8th mile climbs about 100 feet and I really struggled to get the lap pace under 7 minutes. This ended up being about 20 seconds slower than the same mile last year. There seemed to be a headwind at this point as well.
The 9th mile was a more respectable 6:33, mainly because someone came past who I managed to cling on to. The 10th miles was another climber and this was a bit of a disaster at 7:09. Aaagh!
The course starts to drop in the 11th mile and I managed a 6:27. Then the fun really starts in the 12th mile with a drop of 165 feet. Managed a 6:00 here! The last mile is also slightly downhill and I tried to give everything I had and got a 6:13. Sub 6:00 for the last 200m and my watch said 1:25:05 when I stopped it. Was disappointed not to get a sub 1:25.
So no PB but my second fastest HM.
The winner, Ben Fish, only managed 69:00 and he did a 65:16 HM last year so I guess the conditions affected everyone.
At least my next race will almost certainly be in better conditions!
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