Lichfield Half Marathon race report
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| Everyone had to stop running again 20 yards later! |
I decided to enter this race at the back end of 2013, as my
running was going pretty well and I wanted an achievable target to work
towards. In addition, my mother-in-law lives in Lichfield and we have a few
friends down that neck of the woods. Also the course seemed fairly flat to me,
though described as ‘undulating’, mainly because they are all softies down
there! Undulating in Staffordshire is otherwise known as ‘flat’ in the West
Riding…
Anyway, the training went well over the winter, and the week
of the race arrived in typical pre-run fashion with a host of imaginary
ailments taking hold. My throat is sore, have I got a cold? No. My knees are
aching, maybe my legs are shot, etc etc. The run up was also my first real
experience of proper ‘tapering’, when you dramatically scale back the intensity
and length of training runs. So dropping from running 12 miles, to 9, then a mere 3, left me
feeling rather twitchy and irritable. Sorry, everyone!
On the day before the race, we headed to Lichfield via my
sister’s in Derby & ended up laying on a grass bank clutching plastic beer
glasses under a blue sky, watching cricket at Darley Abbey. It is hard to
describe how idyllically magical this was, and it was rather a shame to head
off to Lichfield, rather than spending the rest of the day (and night) at the
Abbey.
Race day dawned with the customary early rise and into the
meticulously laid out race kit, before strolling across the city (a miniature
city, incidentally, but with an absolutely massive Cathedral) with Kath &
Marcus to the start. First priority was to join the massive queue for the
portaloos, and as runners are a terribly friendly bunch, I had a good chat with
the fella in front of me, who was a Wolves fan. I think it is safe to say that
Roger Johnson & Jamie O’Hara aren’t the most popular footballers in the
Black Country at the moment.
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| Nipple plasters applied... |
As we milled around waiting for the start time, looking at
the many splendoured wonders of club running vests (Birchfield Harriers a
personal favourite), a chap wandered past & gave Marcus a leaflet, which
turned out to be raising awareness about testicular cancer. In view of my
previous history in this area (scroll down if you fancy a long read) I chased
after him, compared ailments and told him to keep up the good work. Subsequently,
I was chuffed to find this on Twitter;
So, be nice to people and encourage them, please! The odd
pleasant word can go a long way.
Anyway, race time arrived, I managed to avoid having to
participate in the ghastly dance warm up thing where someone shouts “BEND!
STRETCH!...” whilst you do embarrassed, shuffling Dad-dancing, and headed
towards the start line, which was down a narrow school driveway. More chatter
& “good lucks” with assorted people (largely of the middle aged variety), a
word about some races – the Barcelona Marathon is “hot” apparently, and then it
was time to go….
We slowly shuffled under the starting arch, briefly started
running then jammed to an immediate half as the drive kinked around and narrowed, causing a bit of bumping
into each other and many ‘sorrys’. The whole field seemed to then settle into a
bizarre, exaggerated running on the spot motion, rocking from side to side as
we shuffled for the gateway. Of course, once out on the road, it was nice to
finally open up and run properly, through a closed major junction and off down
an ‘A’ road. There is something deeply satisfying about seeing traffic stopped
for hundreds of people in the road, and it was good to get the legs spinning to
banish all those imaginary ailments. After about half a mile, I had a quick
look at my GPS watch to see how my pace was coming along. The aim was to run at
8 minute mile pace, which is the threshold speed for ‘proper’ running, and was
hoping to get round the 13.1 mile route in somewhere around 1 hour 45 minutes.
So it was something of a shock to glance at my watch and see my pace coming up
as ‘6 minute .. mile’. Starting too fast is a really common pitfall in a distance
running, so I tried to slow down a bit and settle into a steadier pace.
Shortly, we reached the only major ‘hill’ (in a
Staffordshire sense) up the road to Whittington, which settled the field down
nicely, with some keener starters plummeting back through the field, and the
rest of us settling into little groups. I had my first nice chat with a bloke
here, and he remained narrowly ahead of me until around the 8 mile mark. It is
nice to have someone to follow, and in an ideal world, it is a shapely female
(sorry, but it just is), but white t-shirt bloke made a good pace marker. Soon
we passed the barracks for the Staffordshire Regiment (“Kingsmen? Troopers?”
Not sure…) before turning downhill and heading into the Staffordshire
countryside. My pace seemed to be consistently below 8 minute mile speed, but I
decided to just flow with it, see what happened and follow the white t-shirt
man.
As we approached the village of Whittington, a couple of blokes in front
made a bit of a play to get out an energy gel each, which reminded me to do the
same. Energy gels are a revolting flavoured paste that have rather
transformed the experience of distance running, or any other endurance sport,
for that matter, as they almost instantly deliver a cargo of 300 calories or
more in an easily digestible form, which heads directly to your muscles.
The effect is miraculous, and reminds me of this clip from Pulp Fiction;
The only problem with them is that they taste nasty, rather
like kids toothpaste, so I had a little laugh with the two blokes about what
flavours they had. Apparently, whilst I had gone for ‘disgusting’, they had
gone for ‘revolting’ and ‘vile’. We then passed a water station & collected
squeezy bottles of water, had a quick sip, a quick splosh on the head (the sun
was well and truly out by now), then chucked them into a vast pile of
semi-drunk bottles mixed with discarded energy gel sachets. I suppose that it is just as well that they taste horrible, otherwise humanity could stop eating food altogether & just have the occasional gel...
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| "Alas, vomit flavoured..." |
There isn’t really much more to say about the run; I
maintained my pace, the organisation, stewarding and support on the course was
good (special mention to the children who put out a trestle table with cups of
water), I chatted to assorted other people around me – it seems impolite not to
ask when someone is wearing a ‘Running in Memory of…’ t-shirt, as well as
midlife crises and carbon fibre bikes with one of the gel blokes (the other one
appearing to have blown a gasket). I also resisted various offers to join
athletics clubs in the Midlands or go triathlon training in Birmingham. Runners
really are a sociable bunch with a shared set of common values, and it was
lovely to be out in such company. The miles kept disappearing, my pace kept up
and soon we arrived back in Lichfield. I tried to work out what my likely
finishing time was going to be throughout the race, and began to suspect that a
really fast last mile at ‘Parkrun speed’ would take me under 1 hour 40, but my
legs seemed rather reluctant to pick up the pace as we approached the last
mile.
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| Ron Hill tribute running past Marcus on the final stretch. |
As I wrote earlier, it is a very small city indeed, suddenly
you turn out of a country land into a housing estate and over the railway line.
A couple of stewards were giving out sponges here, so I mopped myself down and
then tried to pick up the pace. This was slightly impeded by a subway, with the
up, down then up again knocking me off my stride a bit. Then down Brownsfield
Road, pat Kath & the boys at the ginnel, past Glyn in his garden, round the
roundabout and over a bumpy grass field to the finish, stopping my watch in
1.40.48 (the official timing took 3 seconds off that). This was a far better
time than I imagined I could do, and would translate into a 3 hour 30 minute
marathon, which does beg an obvious question… to which the answer is no, I have
no intention of giving that a go. It is just too much training.
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| A scenic place to end a race |
Overall, it was a great day out, capped off by several hours
in the Kings Head drinking Pedigree, which was probably a sub-optimal thing to
do, but was great fun. Thanks to all who sponsored me, anyone still wishing to
do so can visit;
And here are my remarkably even, and even more remarkably boring, splits:
