Gloucester Half Marathon 2019
Gloucester half marathon is where I achieved my half marathon PB this time last year. I wasn’t convinced I was ready to match or beat that time but Simons plan for me indicated it was potentially on.
Last year I ran with two mates, Steve and Sonny, but this year I was going solo. It was too early a start for Steph and the girls to come and support me but I’m used to travelling to races on my own now.
The car park was literally about a mile and a half from the race HQ. While walking there I got chatting to a guy called Richard. I also got to meet Ali and his partner Charlotte and saw James again, who I first met here last year.
Rather randomly, as I was talking to James while warming up Richard came over and it turns out he’s good friends with James’ brother. Such a small world!
The race plan
Going into this race, the last few weeks training had been solid. Despite working a lot, I had been getting all my sessions done. It’s safe to say I started this year stronger than I finished last year.
I had a good warm up, going through all my drills and finishing with some strides. The start was delayed by 10 minutes, more on that later, so after a quick dash to wee in a bush, we were off.
I successfully managed to control my pace at the start and let plenty of runners go past me. Less than a mile in I got chatting to a guy I’d run with for part of last years race. His time goals were bigger than mine so I let him go on. I saw him after the race and he smashed it which is ace.
Back to my race and I made a steady start, settling in at the planned pace. However, I was feeling a little sluggish. I hadn’t slept well at all on the Friday night and I think it had caught up with me.
The planned pace was 7min miles for the first 6 miles, this felt ok. The next 4 miles were supposed to 6.45min miles and that’s when I started to struggle.
All aboard the struggle bus
I found it difficult to get the pace down and once I did, it took some serious effort to keep it there. The course is two big loops before breaking off to the finish and the second loop was mentally tough.
Once I got to mile 10 the plan was to push the pace and see what happened in regards to a PB. It confirmed to me then that I had no chance of that happening. I was tired and my fitness was being pushed to the limit.
I pushed as hard as I could but I had very little left. So much so that I blew up a bit around mile 11-12. My legs felt like lumps of led and I had a slight stitch but I persevered and pushed through it to finish as strong as I could.
I finished with a time of 1hr31.01 which I was pretty happy with. My level of fitness left me a little bit disappointed but it was the longest run I’d done for a while but the build towards my marathon has only just started. It’s also my third fastest half marathon time which is positive.
Its still great progress from where I was back in September and a lot of that is down to the work Simon has done with me. I’m excited to see what I can achieve in the coming months.
The event itself
Its not often I criticise races or events. I understand a great deal of time and effort is put in by all involved and that they volunteer their free time.
However, I felt the event wasn’t as good as last year. It seemed bigger, which is good and the slight changes to the routes meant you weren’t racing with the runners from the marathon and 50k races as much.
As a rule, I don’t like loops in races and I didn’t enjoy the route this year. You are given wristbands to discard at the end of each route and this was done better than last year. It still seems an odd thing for a reasonably big race.
The race HQ was also in a different place. Having it in a much bigger sports hall is a testament to how much bigger the race was this year. The major downside was the lack of signage. You had runners queueing up for registration but half of us upon walking in were unaware we could skip this queue if we already had our race packs.
So because of this, and also the queues to the toilets, the start of the race was delayed. Obviously, in the grand scheme of things a 10 minute delay is nothing but I just feel with a bit more signage it could maybe have been avoided.
I also felt that while the medal was perfectly fine, it paled in comparison to last years. This is obviously subjective as some people don’t even care about the medal!
After two years of running this race, I might give it a miss next year.
What’s next
Onwards and upwards though and I have 2 races coming up to look forward to. The first is a local midweek 5k which will test my speed. It will be the first fast 5k race I’ve done in over a year which means there’s a possibility of a PB but we’ll see.
The following weekend we’re off to London. I was lucky enough to win a free entry into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park half marathon. It will only be a training run but I’m looking forward to it none the less.
Hopefully I’ll get the write up of that race done quicker than I have this one!
