Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Warwick Half Marathon
by Russell Turner - 16:57 on 01 March 2020
The training paid off: Warwick saw a new half marathon PB of 2:11:05 (2:10:38 for 13.1 miles – my meanderings added another 0.07 miles). The second six miles were covered in 59:59, 11secs faster than the first six – so my pacing was good – and the final mile was the fastest of all 13 at 9:33. It couldn’t have gone better, yet the auspices had not been good.
Saturday began at 3.30am when I was rudely awakened by the TV in my room at the Redesdale Arms coming loudly to life. “I thought we’d fixed that,” was the apologetic comment when, over breakfast, I apprised the boss of my disturbance.
So I was a bit bleary-eyed when I set off to complete the journey to Chez Richard in Leamington. This might explain why, when after a reasonably smooth journey I was warned by matrix signs of a hold-up between M1 junctions 23 and 23A, I missed the turn-off for the rat run (I thought it was services) and ended up taking an hour to cover the four miles between them. During which the wind howled, hail and sleet competed to see which could batter Grandson of Seat the most, and a tyre pressure warning light came on. Not very restful.
Things improved at Richard’s, where M&S pizza was the pre-race fayre, then went downhill again later when sleep failed to come.
Sunday: the cold wind still blew. At least it was dry. I arrived at Warwick Racecourse, base for the HM, in time to make use of its car park before the 8.30 cut-off time. Unfortunately, so did many dozen other drivers. With no vehicular movement and time ticking away I activated Plan B and used a nearby multi-storey then walked the five minutes to the racecourse. One hectic bag drop later, I ambled over to join the crowd behind the start line and try to keep warm.
Despite all this I was optimistic. Training had gone well, and once we were away I discovered that most of the rural course was sheltered from the icy blast by hedges and trees. I even needed to remove hat and gloves. The running was smooth, even on the worst mile (coming up to 7) where the uphill section was one of the unsheltered ones and a vicious wind blew into our faces. I still covered it in 10:18 though.
Occasional gossip with fellow runners helped pass the time, or counting backwards from 100 when things got tough: the course didn’t have big hills but lots of undulation. The time ticked by, and at 11.5 miles I knew I’d do well because from there it was downhill then flat. Then it was over, and in the excitement I forgot to stop the Garmin, which added 90secs to my time. Annoying. Fortunately the chip in my race number noted the real time.
Thoughts now turn to Inverness next week. How I run it – fast, slow or run/walk – depends on how well I recover. Fingers crossed.
The only disappointment of the day is that I can no longer post Relive video maps of my efforts because from today they can be created only on a smartphone app. Technology is leaving me behind.
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