Race Report: Wimbledon Half Marathon 2015

I've noticed a race around Wimbledon Common a few times, and today I was in it. It's the Wimbledon Half Marathon, put on by Run Through events. And it was wet. Very wet. The rain started soon after we arrived, and gradually got harder.

The first wave went off at 9:30, for those aiming for sub-1:40. Second wave three minutes later for sub-1:50, third after another three minutes for those aiming for the significant 2-hour mark, and then finally fourth wave with everyone else.

I was aiming to beat my Hitchin Hard Half time of 2:00:07 so I placed myself in the sub-2 wave. Mrs was also aiming to beat her time and go sub 2:15, so she went in the fourth wave.

The Wimbledon Half route

The first couple of km are mainly uphill, climbing from the recreation ground up towards the Wimbledon parkrun route and the Windmill tea rooms. I took a nice easy start, 6:00 for the first km, 5:50 for the second. Once up on the flat middle section though I felt good, so pushed a little harder. I was aiming for an average of under 5:40 per km, so was quite pleased when I knocked the next few off at around 5:20.

What goes up must come down, so it was a nice long fast downhill back to the river to complete lap 1. I felt really good, and was running at a good even pace. I'd been steadily overtaking people all the way round, and was enjoying picking off who would be next.

Good pacing (green line) and a few sharp ups and downs!

The uphill section was a bit tougher this time, but I engaged my glutes and kept upright, with high cadence - that seemed to work well. The rain was absolutely torrential, despite being in a forest for most of the route we were all completely drenched to the skin!

Into the final third of the race distance and I was having to work harder to keep the pace up. I was confident I would break 2:00 and it looked like I'd even get under 1:55. Finishing the lap there's a little nasty hill that nearly killed me, but then back onto the grass of the playing field for a finishing stretch and a bit of a sprint to the line.

The best thing? The medal has a Womble on it :)

The official results are out already, and with them the proof that I'd smashed my target of 2:00, coming in at 1:52:27 for 180th position overall. Mrs also did absolutely amazingly, finishing in 2:06:44 for 300th place overall. We're both super-happy with that, on a muddy, soaking wet, 100% off-road course (with some hills for fun).

The only other thing I wanted to do was negative split (do the second half faster than the first). Despite logging my runs into about a half dozen different activity/performance tracking sites, I can't see an easy way to find that out (you'd think "What was the time when I got to 10.55km?" would be easy enough to work out!).

Doing it rough and ready, my 10-11km split was 5:48, so if I add 0.55 of that to my 10km time, that's 53:51 + (0.55 x 5:48) = 0:57:02 for 10.5km. Take that from my overall time of 1:52:27 to get the second half, and that comes to 0:55:25 - so I negative split by 1:37! I'm very happy with that!!

LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) breakfast of champions!

Dinner time now - and a richly deserved curry at Khanage - the best curry house in Wimbledon.

Juneathon day 28/30 - Race Report: Hitchin hard half marathon

I was a bit worried about today's Hitchin hard half marathon - half marathons seem to present the perfect balance of distance vs time vs effort to irritate my ITBS. Both bouts have been brought on by halves, both by the same half in fact - the Royal Parks Half, and both times I've been disillusioned and off running for at least six months afterwards.

Today's course was very different to those. Far fewer people, significantly more climbing and descending, and the 28th day of my Juneathon run streak (as explained earlier, actually the 30th day running in a row).

Mrs was running it too (her race report is here) - a big challenge and milestone for her as she continues her recovery from ankle surgery. To think that just 5 months ago she couldn't walk, and is now toeing the line at a hilly half. Much love and respect for that.

The route, a rough lollypop shape

We were off at 9:30, a couple of repetitions of a hill in the grounds of The Priory, and then out onto the open road. The roads were not closed to traffic so we had to keep an eye and an ear out for cars (no headphones allowed!), but it didn't cause any trouble - the roads were very quiet.

My race plan was to finish strong, I wasn't particularly concerned about time but two hours is a nice benchmark. I set off at a measured pace, cadence high, breathing easily. I walked the particularly steep hills, probably about five walking periods during the race.

Like always, most people started too fast and put too much effort in up the hills. For the first quarter I let people run away, I was fairly near the back but I knew I'd see them again. The middle half I saw the same faces. They'd run past me as I hiked up hill, then I'd set off at the top and overtake them easily as I was fresher. Repeat (several times!).

You can clearly see an increase in pace starting from about 1:30 - and the sprint finish!

The day was humid but stayed mainly dry until the last quarter. I decided to start seeing what I had in the tank and was easily able to draw people in and overtake. The light drizzle turned to rain in the last few km, I pushed harder. I overtook many more people in the last quarter than I was expecting to - a sign of good pacing control at the start, saving myself by walking the hills, and having some gas in the tank.

There's a long shallow uphill to get back to the grounds of the Priory, that part I found quite sapping, but pushed on. For the last km I was wondering if I might make it under two hours - it was going to be tight. The finish was on a grassy downhill, so I pushed hard, overtook a few people (including blowing past two guys who were in the middle of a sprint to the line!) and stopped my watch.

It doesn't look too bad seen on the graph - felt a lot lumpier at the time...

My watch read 2:00:13! I'll have to wait for the official result, but I doubt it'll disagree by as much as the 14 seconds I'd need to get under 2 hours. I'm very happy with my performance, and the race. Mrs ran well too, coming in well in the bracket she was aiming for. After a nice cup of tea, and unexpected chat with my friend Bob who it turns out is part of the race organising team, it was back to the in-laws for buckets of tea and a massive fry-up - perfect!

Looks like I'll have to come back next year for the sub-2!

My Juneathon totals: 28 runs for 241.25km in 25:27:55

Race Report: Royal Parks Half Marathon

I added the Royal Parks Half Marathon on to the race calendar at the start of the year - I thought it would be fun to knock out a half after all the Ironman fun of the year. With the fitness I aimed to have acquired by this point in the year, minus a bit for fatigue form previous races, I should be able to smash out a PB.

I've run two stand-alone half marathons previously. Royal Parks in its second year, 2009, at that time the furthest I'd ever run. I clocked a hugely frustrating 2:00:05, partly as a result of losing my mind a bit, forgetting how many miles were in a half marathon, and expecting the finish to be just after the 12-mile marker. Realising I had a mile left was quite demoralising, and I found it hard to push that little bit harder to make my 2-hour target.

Then last year I ran Nike+ Run To The Beat with Mrs. We planned to jog round, and then push a bit with 5km left if we had any beans left. We posted a time of just over 2:07 on a hot sunny September day.

The only other halves I've run in race conditions are the two this year at Ironman 70.3 UK where I posted 2:06 on a really very tough course, and Ironman 70.3 Ireland where I ran a few seconds over 1:50 on a pancake flat course.

It was clear I could improve on this, and I was aiming for sub 1:45 with a dream outcome of sub 1:40. There were a couple of pace runners aiming to hit 1:40 so my plan was simple. Stick with them for as long as I possibly could. If I could hang on, great, and if I had any juice left at the end try and over take to hit that sub 1:40 dream outcome.

The beautiful course takes in a number of the Royal Parks, and some great London landmarks

I set off in front of the 1:40 pacers, and after 1km one of them came flying past me. I hadn't realised I'd started slowly, so thought I'd better jump on the 1:40 bus as it trundled past. The next km passed in 4:24 - this was a bit nuts, that's not far off my parkrun pace, and those are only 5km. There was a lot of concerned chatter in the group about how fast he was going. 4:44 per km should hit 1:40, 4:24 would get us there in a bit under 1:33, and there's no way I can manage that!

I hung on for a bit, and after 5km he had slowed a little, but was still going a bit too hard. We thought we should tell him, but no one wanted to use the effort to catch him up! He realised and slowed considerably, we put in a 4:58km back in Hyde Park just before half way. About this time the other 1:40 pacer joined us. I jumped into his group instead (as the one I was following pulled away again) - this guy was metronomic. He was checking his watch every mile and at 8 miles was 5s up on his target.

My pacing wasn't too bad in the end, even a slight lift at the end

I was finding it tougher as I moved into the last third, but was still hanging on. From 11 miles on the pacer would slowly pull away, and I'd have to put an effort in to join him again. This happened a few times and each catch-up was harder than the last.

The course ends with a long drag across the bottom of Hyde Park. This time as he pulled away up the gentle rise past the Albert Memorial I couldn't hang on. My heart rate was through the roof, it had been above functional threshold since about kilometre 10, and my legs and arms were singing from the build up of lactic acid - I certainly can't be accused of not trying.

Heart rate - the only way is up, baby!

I crossed the line in 1:40:31, taking 19 minutes and 46 seconds off my previous stand-alone half marathon PB, and 10 minutes off the fastest half I've run in competition. I can't complain about that! I know 1:40 is in within easy reach, next time I'll smash that, and maybe even think about trying for 1:35.

I'll probably run this race next year too. I enjoy the course, the support is excellent, and it makes a good performance benchmark towards the end of the season. In order to hit my Ironman 70.3 objectives I think I need to be able to hit 1:30. That's quite a target, but I reckon I can do it. Whether I can hit it next season or not though remains to be seen...