Shakespeare Half Marathon = Smashed PB!
On Sunday 27th April 2014 I ran the Shakespeare Half Marathon in Stratford-Up-On Avon.
My half marathon PB at the time was 2:06:57 set in Sheffield in 2013. This time I was aiming for a sub 2-hours which meant a pace of around 9:09 a mile - that actually felt so tough thinking about it but I was determined to do it.
I’d been constantly checking the weather forecast which switched between heavy showers and light rain - when the day come it had been raining but had stopped. There were only a few spots of rain during the race, it wasn’t too cold and just a light breeze - perfect running conditions actually.
2 miles in feeling fine - the Sporttape keeping my knees going
For my race/pace tactic, I had been reading about negative splits (where you run slower at the start of the race and then pick up) so I was concious of not starting too fast, slowly building up and then maintaining a good pace.
As the route progressed, I was realising how relatively flat it was. I was feeling really good and was able to maintain a good pace, under 9-minute miles to start with - I still held back a little as I knew I wanted to save the legs for the end - but a PB was definitely on.
The route went out of Stratford and through some nice villages and country-side and there was great support along the way and plenty of water stations. There was one killer hill about 8 miles in but it came back down very quick. All runners were giving each other great encouragement to get up that hill, it really worked, well done everyone.
I was feeling more and more confident that I was able to keep this good pace up as each mile passed; I remember it being around 8:30 average a mile well into the race - and the miles were going down very quickly. When I looked at my splits after the race, I was only 7 seconds off a 10K PB!
I normally hit the wall around 10 miles and that’s where my time suffers, so knew that time would come, I was just hoping it wouldn’t come that soon.
At 10 miles all I was thinking was “Just a Parkrun to go!” - I’ve done parkrun so many times so lets just pretend this is a normal Saturday morning and get through this.
Looking at my watch, I was on 1:27 - this gave me a real boost - I knew I could do the last 3 miles in 33 minutes and I would be sub 2-hours. Now it was just a case of keeping the legs going (and they did).
My pace did slow down but I was able to keep it up reasonably well, doing the last 3 miles in just under 30 minutes. The final mile of the run was down a narrow path and I felt like I was holding people up so waved a few people past, getting some good encouragement on the way to keep going. My legs finally gave in at around 12.5 miles but by then I could see the finish line and hear the crowds cheering.
A final, emotional sprint to the finish line gave me a PB in a time of 1:56:52 - smashing my previous PB by 10 minutes!
Feeling proud at the finish
I think it was a combination of my good training (I did 100K in the month previous including a timed 10K, two 10 milers and one 12 miler) and the route being so flat.
Oh, and how amazing is the medal!
