At the start of 2006 I was so inspired by (addicted to??) the novelty of Triathlon and constantly drawn to set new challenges for myself, that I committed to completing a Half Marathon by the end of the year. Well, with all the preparation I needed to do before Eton / Tour of Wessex 50m / Windsor / Bananaman & London I soon forgot about this little promise!!! That was until I was left with nothing to look forward to at the end of the Tri Season.

So in September I rounded up some support for a race conveniently placed right at the end of the year and Bedford Half 10 December was all confirmed!! Perfect – 3 months to prepare!

Somehow and rather spontaneously I had my arm twisted to line up for the start of the Henley Half Marathon in October. I was definitely not prepared as I only had 1 long run (1.5laps of RP) under my belt and set off with a friendly warning from my good friend Louise “to take it easy … that people died trying this type of thing”. Oh well!!! My novice running logic at the time was that if I could race for a period of 2h46 (my time for London) and going by my TT times & 1.5lap time I worked out it would take me about 2:10/15 to run 21k. That would be a whole 30min of resting time (compared to London 2:46) – so surely I could do Henley?? Brilliant!!! I was good to go!!! Well, I surprised myself and those along with me on the day with a 1h54 finish. I LOVED it!!!

My benchmark has been set. Now all I needed to do was repeat the performance on 10th December!!!

I wish I could say that I woke up feeling race perfect and all excited by the thought of my next Half Marathon. I did not. Not that I am a very experienced racer, but in all the races I have woken up for this year, I never felt quite so uninspired!! Never mind I told myself, things were bound to improve en route and once I connected with the troops!! BUT – alas that was not to be! It was grey and cold and thanks to the closure of J11-J12 on the M1 we were late, so there was no time for any mental race prep! We arrived. We made it to the start. We were off.

My goal was to be at 4miles in 33min. I made it there in just over 35. Oh flip! I was gutted!! My legs felt like lead; I was too hot so I took off my HH base layer & then I was too cold but there was no time to faff with putting it back on; everyone was overtaking me and I was grumpy (Eton Sprint post backstroke swim type of grumpy). Even my Blow-Your-Mind-Hard-As-Hell-Hard-House-Music could not pick me up out of the deep, dark hole I was in!! Where was my running Mojo?

The boys (David & Howard) were way up front, I wasn’t sure if Bruce & Candice had made it to the start line as they were caught up in the M1 closure, but Zita was either a little ahead or a little behind me the whole race. We played a nice game of tag from start to finish! I made it my mission not to lose sight of her blue top – ever – and together with my internal voice promising that I “would find my feet any minute now” I made it through to that point where it suddenly all falls into place!! Not without some school girl errors with my 8x & 9x tables though, which had me scarily way over the 2 hour mark … but as some of you already know, I can’t multiply or add!! As the miles reduced and the maths got easier I realised that with a little more “oomph” I could still beat 1h54. So at 9 miles and with only 4 miles to go (easy times table you see!!) I had it all worked out and magically my legs started to co-operate as I needed to do about 8.5min miles to beat my goal. Mojo and I were reunited and we pushed to beat the 1h54 benchmark. A nice, friendly arm around my waist from my cousin at 11miles (Bruce had caught us up) and I just had one small, but sneaky uphill (at 12miles!!!) to go!! I can’t say I was a terribly pleasant finisher as I was still grumpy, but I was definitely a very happy 1:53:14 finisher!!!

The end result was GREAT as I over-achieved on my 2006 goal and ran 2 Half Marathons (not 1). A few weeks off now to enjoy the Silly Season before 2007 Half Ironman Training begins. Clearly got some mental race preparation to work on & I probably need to throw in some pre-Switzerland maths tuition as well!!

Thanks to Zita for being close by – it would have been lonely out there without you!!! Here are the times for the day - well done guys and thanks for coming along to “play” with me on what was meant to have been my Virgin Half Marathon!

Results:

• Howard Houlston 1:27:15
• David Lombard 1:29:14 (PB)
• Bruce Rogerson finished 1:45-47ish (he had no watch & missed the gun start)
• Zita Calvin 1:52:24 (PB)
• Alison Coates 1:53:14 (PB)

Merry Christmas everyone … see you on Sunday for the Xmas Run & Breakfast.

View the Results