Race Day Diary - Water Aid Half Marathon

So I ran my first half marathon of the year on Sunday and despite not achieving the time I wanted I’m glad I did it and it was an enjoyable time.

Let me give you a quick rundown of my preparation.

Nothing earth shattering really I was going to train up until the Friday but I got called up to play footie on Saturday so gave myself Thursday & Friday off training.

Carb loading time then on these rest days chip buttys all round. Only joking I generally try to eat wholegrain carbs with everyone of my meals and that’s pretty much it. Saturday I made sure I took on plenty of calories and carbs with a big breakfast of porridge oats and protein shake.  Toast, fruit plenty of fluids around lunch time and packed a meal replacement bar (high protein & carb) for after the game.

Now one thing that I didn’t prepare for was 2 hours of football as I was filling in I expected to be a sub for the game but 90 minutes later, extra time and penalty’s I knew I’d have to revise my times for the next day.

So the day started with me waking up at 7am normally, this was just as well as I had set my alarm clock wrong. Now I knew about the clocks were going forward but still managed to get it wrong, don’t ask how.

7:30AM is when I finally got up and dressed. First port of call was to lighten my load if you know what I mean.

7:45-8:15AM breakfast of porridge, honey & cinnamon. I also had a can of nourishment (high protein & carb) with my supplements and vitamins.

8:30AM all ready to go and awaiting my lift from my good friend Chris Spratt
8:50AM lift finally arrives so it’s off to Bisham Abbey
9:15AM Arrive

9:20-9:55AM Get registration info, number, chip timing and generally get yourself sorted. I put my chip timer on wrong so had to do that again. Usual dash for the loo 10 minutes before the start. Taking on plenty of fluids and I must confess didn’t do a proper warm up & stretch.

9:56AM Get in to position

10:00AM and were off

First couple of miles was a little on the tight side and I’m not talking about the muscles...ok maybe a little but some of the route forces you into 2 at a time in the earlier stages.

I realised at the 4 mile mark I was going to struggle to get out of second gear and concentrated on keeping my rhythm & technique going.

I did however find another gear / second wind reaching the 9 mile mark and started to tick along quite nicely.
Into the last mile and I started to dip big time and needed that line to appear.

In the end I finished with a time of 1hour 42 minutes and 13 seconds.
I was slightly disappointed as I wanted to be under that 1h 40 mark but it wasn’t to be.
The positives though were I’d beat my previous half marathon time and without football I know I would have shaved off 4-5 minutes.

I ran with 2 friends of mine and they did manage to get one over on me with Chris Spratt 1h 36 and Miles Smith 1h 39.

But there’s always next time