Burnham Half Marathon 2017
Ok, so here it is, my write up on this years Burnham half marathon which was my big target race for a sub 1hr30 time.
If you read my blog post about dealing with the weight of expectation, then you’ll know that I was feeling the pressure a little the night before and that I set myself a lofty goal of finishing in a time of 1h28. Was I being overly ambitious with that time? Well, the answer to isn’t a straight yes or no.
If you haven’t seen my posts about this race on social media then I’ll save you the suspense. Sub 1hr30 didn’t happen.
The morning of the race I was nervous, a lot more so than usual on a race day. Was it the pressure getting to me? Who knows. What didn’t help was us leaving later than planned which just added to my stress levels and could have easily been avoided if we’d both got up a bit earlier. I guess that’s one of the cons of living a 2 minute drive away from the start of the race!
Burnham Harriers before the race
Once at the BASC ground, home of Burnham rugby and cricket clubs, we parked up in a field of ridiculously long grass and made our into race HQ. I collected my number and made my first pre race toilet stop. I was surprised by how few of the Burnham Harriers were racing but then quite a few of them were helping put the event on.
There was a little bit of drizzle before I warmed up but other than that it was near perfect conditions. Or so I thought.
Speaking to a few other runners, I found out I wasn’t the only one to be chasing a big time. I also caught up with Fiona (@Fiona_slimmingworld_diaries) who was running the race as a training run for her upcoming marathon debut in Birmingham. We were soon called to the start line for the race brief. My nerves had eased as they so often do on the start line of a race. I lined up right at the front to give myself the best possible start.
The countdown began and soon we were off. I made a pretty decent start but I soon realised that something wasn’t right. I always go out pretty fast for the the first mile but I had a feeling in my lower legs, around my shins, which I’ve had before on training runs and whenever I get it I’ve always had to stop to quickly stretch my legs out but there was no way I was stopping, especially so early on.
Early on in the race
So I kept going and the feeling passed after a while. We then had the only bad part of this race, running alongside traffic on the main road in and out of Burnham. Its always well sign posted and marshalled and being so early in the race we weren’t too far behind the lead timing van but I don’t understand why they can’t shut the road as it would only need to be closed for half an hour tops.
Anyway, we all pushed on and were soon on the country lanes going through Brent Knoll and heading towards Lympsham. It was during this section that I was caught up by my friend Jenny from Cheddar Running Club. Jenny is quick and has always been quicker than me at Parkrun and was much faster than me at last years Burnham half marathon. Because of this, I was expecting her to fly past me but to my surprise, she just tucked in behind me and stayed there for a few miles.
After the race with Jenny who finished 2nd lady
By this point I was struggling. My first few miles were on target pace wise but it was so hot and muggy that I could feel my energy sapping away with every mile that passed. Turns out that Jenny was having the same feelings. We had a brief chat about it, as best you can when running a half marathon anyway, and we just tried to keep plugging away.
I’d noticed that my pace had drifted above 7min/mile which was not where I needed it to be if was to go sub 1hr30. I was struggling to quicken the pace, my legs just didn’t have it in them and it was all getting very frustrating. We soon passed some of Jenny’s friends who had pulled over to cheer her on and even though the cheers were aimed at her, it also spurred me on more which was just what I needed.
My sudden burst of energy didn’t last long as Jenny passed me. I expected her to pull away as I was starting to feel a little defeated as the realisation of not getting my target time on the course I felt had the best chance of doing so sunk in. But I dug in and stayed with her through miles 8 and 9 and we had another brief chat about hoping to have enough left to drop the hammer in the last few miles.
When we got to about 10 and half miles in I decided to see what I had left in me. It was at this stage of the race last year that I relly pushed on and resulted in me taking over 2 minutes off my PB set the week before. The same wasn’t going to happen again but I found that Jenny didn’t stay with me. There was a Weston runner ahead of me who had been in my sights the whole race so I set on getting as close to him as possible.
It turns out I couldn’t get anywhere near him but he was gaining on the 2 people just in front of him and after he went past them I focused on catching them. One of them was actually 1st lady which meant Jenny, just behind me, was 2nd lady.
My attempt at dropping the hammer like last year failed miserably and by mile 12 I was done. Mile 13 was my slowest mile of the whole race and I’m used to finishing strong in nearly every race I run. There were people cheering me on towards the end which was appreciated and upon entering the BASC ground for the final part of the race I could here Isabelle screaming for me but by that point I had nothing left.
Absolutely nothing left at the finish
I crossed the line in a disappointing 1hr32.17 which is over 2 minutes slower than my Bristol time 2 weeks before and about 20 seconds slower than my Tewkesbury time where I blew up and walked mid race. So that was that, my sub 1hr30 dream was gone for this year. I’m not going to lie, I was convinced I was going to do it and having not even gone close was gutting. But that’s running, you just never how you’re going to feel on the day and anything can happen during a race.
Being awarded my trophies by Matt, last years 1st local male
Still, all was not lost. Despite my disappointmaent with my time, for the record I’m aware its still a great time, I did finish 1st local male which was a big improvement on my 3rd place finish last year. Not only that but Jenny finished 2nd lady and my friend David was an agonising 20 seconds off 3rd local male but smashed his PB. This news cheered me up massively. Not that I was feeling down like after Tewkesbury but I couldn’t help but think of what might have been.
With a delighted David who smashed his PB
During our race, Steph and Isabelle ran the 1 mile fun run with Steph finishing last and Isabelle just ahead of her. To be fair to Steph, she was still getting over the flu and hadn’t run in a couple of weeks but it was nice for them to each get a medal.
We hung around after the race for the presentations. It turns out it was mixed bag performance wise with several people I spoke to that struggled but plenty of others who absolutely smashed it. Fiona was one of those that struggled and in her own words had her worst race ever. Despite this she still hung around to watch the presentation which was nice.
I received 2 trophies for finishing 1st local male, one of which is mine to keep and the other is just for a year unless I win again next year. This one is also having my name engraved on it therefore putting me in the history books of the race which is pretty cool.
Serious race bling!
So that’s that. We live and learn from both positive and negative experiences and I know this will only help me grow as as a runner and as a person. I may follow this up with another post about where I feel it all went wrong on the day and what I could have done differently in the build up but for now its time to enjoy winning some top race bling!
