David Currie

Christine had entered the Clarendon Half Marathon this year but, as the day approached, her achilles was still playing up and, with a week to go, she transferred her entry to me. Stood on the start line I was in something of a quandry as how to tackle the race: I had done no preparation this time but last time I had run I had won! On top of this, the first 1km is the flattest of the course so you can’t waste it easing yourself in. As it was, I set off somewhere near the back of the top 10 and at a pace which didn’t feel excessively fast.

I had been undecided over footwear too as my off-road shoes are disintegrating. I’d eventually gone with road shoes which was the right choice as the conditions under foot were the best I’ve known them. Indeed, it was a glorious day with lots of blue sky and a nice cool breeze.

When we reached the climb up to Farley Mount at 7 miles I can’t claim to have been feeling particularly strong but there was the incentive of a steady stream of marathon runners to pick off. Although you’re only just over half way when you reach the top, mentally it feels like you’ve broken the back of the race. I overtook a couple of my fellow half-marathon runners as I descended to where my fan-club was waiting to cheer me on and this gave me sufficient impetus to continue pushing to the end, despite the nasty undulations in the last 5k.

I eventually finished in just over 1:28 which was only half a minute slower than my previous winning time. Even that wouldn’t have been nearly good enough this year with the winner taking an impressive 1:20. I was more than satisfied with my 5th place though and I’ve only been hobbling slightly today!

Today was the traditional ‘Run the Pubs’ where we run round the pubs that we’ve visited on Tuesday evening runs during the summer. There were six of us this year and, in keeping with last year’s tradition, we decided to bin one of the pubs (the Drift at Beaulieu Road Station) for a shorter run (13 miles) starting at the Redshoot Inn and ending with some great food at The Oak at Bank (where Andy somehow managed to book a table with less than a week’s notice). The weather deteriorated on our way round but no-one seemed to mind. We even got cheered along by a selection of Santas at one point when we accidentally came across the route of the CC6 cross-country race (over-taking the back marker in the process!). We also bumped in to Tuesday night veteran Mike Yeo at the New Forest Inn who, clad in wellies, declined to join us for the final short leg to Bank.

2013 Run the Pubs

Today was the day of what I believe was my first road half-marathon. I was taking it fairly seriously having picked a (hopefully) fast course at Gosport and had been following a Runner’s World training plan for the past couple of months. The final few hours of preparation weren’t ideal though: Emma had been up in the night and was then sick in car on the way to the event (as she was for my last half marathon!). My warm-up consisted of standing in the queue for the toilets, buying some gels to replace those I’d left at home, and then standing in the baggage queue before fighting my way to somewhere near the front at the start.

Going in to the race, my best guess was for a time somewhere in the range 80-85 minutes. I decided to hedge my bets and start out a pace for the first few miles that would bring me back in 82 minutes and take it from there. That pace felt pretty comfortable and it wasn’t long before I was dreaming about beating my PB of 79:06 from the Forest of Dean Trails Half-Marathon some 8 years ago.

Although I put in some good miles, I was struggling to push hard enough to maintain that pace and in the last couple of miles I was finding it pretty tough. My attempt to cross the line ahead of what turned out to be the third placed woman (!) had me bringing back up the last of the gels before picking up my medal.

All in all, I can’t not be pleased though. My chip time was 79:34 which was absolutely at the right end of my range of predicted times (indeed, much of my speed work had been done assuming a time much closer to 85). I’m currently showing as 49th which would also be great but there are a few people I know were there missing from the results. The main detraction from the day? It took us nearly an hour to crawl through the traffic just to get back to the far end of the course!

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