Ipswich Half Marathon

We head to the Race HQ only to find that the signs to the car parks, that I’m sure were there last night, seem to have disappeared. Eventually we are directed to where to park and we walk across to the start at Northgate Sports Centre.

The race is catchingly known as the Larking Gowen Ipswich Half Marathon. Larking Gowen I assumed were a firm of solicitors but it turns out they are actually chartered accountants. Whether this is an improvement or not I’m not sure.

Also involved in the 4th running of the event are the delightfully named Ipswich Jaffa Running Club. Who, yes, run in a delightful orange strip.

As part of the Olympic Legacy idea, the organisers have made today’s fun run free to enter. Quite why everybody doesn’t already do this, I’m not sure. I imagine that 95% of event income must come from the main race anyway.

It all starts a little early, at 9am, but this is perhaps no bad thing today with rain forecast for 1pm. We head out though a guard of honour of sorts formed by three Olympic Torchbearers.

The race itself is a little drab at first, through the local housing estates, but then heads into the rather nice and downhill Christchurch Park before taking a brief excursion along Ipswich’s High Street. After which it’s out into the countryside, which I enjoy, but you could really have been anywhere and it doesn’t showcase Ipswich. That said, there was encouraging support from spectators and marshals everywhere we went. The water stations were good too, plenty of them and all with bottles rather than cups.

Tumbling downhill through Christchurch Park was obviously a bad sign because the course had to climb back up and the route in fact proved quite undulating, as well as twisty, throughout. It was not as hilly as Ashbourne obviously but it was certainly not flat either.

As we run back into the grounds of the Sports Centre, a big crowd cheers up in through the gates, yet worryingly we still have three quarters of a mile to go. Which means they divert us for a loop around the pathways of the adjacent school, pathways that are devoid of spectators and therefore atmosphere. Which is quite a soul destroying way to end a decent event. Then finally it’s on to the squishy surface of the running track for the final 400m.

By now it’s already dawned on me that I’m well up on schedule. I had hoped to break 1:40 today but now a very smug 1:38 was looking likely. In fact, even 1:37 looked possible but I shied away from that thought and anyway it’s best to leave something in reserve (a good excuse, to ease up) to be chipped off in the coming weeks. At last, I feel like I’m getting back to where I want to be.

At the end, having bagged 1:38:32, I am handed a better than average medal and a t-shirt. Although I got the size of t-shirt I wanted, this wasn’t the case for many. The later finishers, many being women who wanted Small or Medium, were faced with a choice of Large or Extra Large.

The goody bag was good. A drink, a cereal bar, chocolate and not too much in the way of pointless leaflets.

As I lie on the floor trying to collect my wits, I hear the announcer telling everyone that free massages are available. So I scrape myself off the floor and go in search. When I got there, there was no queue. The reason for which was apparent later when I saw a child wearing the sign which said 'massage this way'. It was a decent long painful massage, just what the doctor ordered before a three hour drive home, for which I now feel fine.

I meet L, who is running this one as well. She does good, very good, particularly considering she hasn’t really being training for this distance.

In all there were just over a 1000 runners. The race would need alterations if they wished to grow it as an event but perhaps they have no wish to.

Then the forecasted rain arrives bang on time.

Ashbourne Half Marathon

I missed the deadline for advance entries for the Ashbourne Half Marathon, so we turn up nice and early to enter on the day. Which was a good thing really, as it seems they will reach the 300 race limit. L isn’t running the half but is instead meeting up with a friend who’s local to Ashbourne to do her daily 5k. Did I mention that her latest ‘challenge’ is 5k a day?

Meanwhile my latest challenge is upon me and starts with a one mile hill climb. This isn’t as bad as it sounds as at least we're all nice and fresh for this first test of the day. Then there’s a long downhill followed by a similar climb at around three miles as we go out to Thorpe village and past Thorpe Cloud before a descent to Ilam village.

The real test comes at about six and a half miles which involves a steep half mile climb up to Blore. Then after that, Wa-hey, it’s pretty much flat and downhill to the finish, with just the one minor uphill blemish on the landscape.

In fact, OMG, these last five or so miles are well fast. At least the group of seven I’m in are. A group I stay with until the last mile when the elastic keeping me with them snaps spectacularly.

In this group was a young lady with unfeasibly tight shorts who chats to everybody, tells them how hard it is and then drops them. She does this to me as well. Don’t you just hate people like that.

Perhaps she read my blog from the other day, which L said was rather sexist because I referred to the runner I met on the street as ‘only’ a girl. Well I’m sure this one thought ‘only a man, and an old one at that’ as she whizzed past us all. What goes around comes around.

My club shirt gets some comments, so much so that I may not wear it again. Not that is gets out much anyway, this is only its second outing ever and the other one was on the Hebrides. I’m only wearing it today because the club I’m in (and I use the phrase loosely) has this race as part of its club championship. People in similar vests keep welcoming me to the club because they haven’t seen me before. I feel like the new boy and I think I’d like to go back to being anonymous.

It’s all very well marshalled and there are plenty of drink stations, although the water is in cups, which probably costs me a minute overall, as I stop five times for a drink. I simply cannot drink from cups on the move. They also have sponges and I love a good sponge, I take three. Not at the same time though.

There were a lot of spectators, although the majority of these were tourists, who were more bemused rather than supportive. My time 1:41:20 is twenty seconds quicker than Wolverhampton the other week, so I must be doing something right.

Wolverhampton Half Marathon

Today is the 15th running of the Wolverhampton Half and Full Marathon, which was a bit of a strange one. Parking is handy at Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Molineux ground for £2, in fact it's so close to the start in West Park you would have thought the club would have offered them a stadium finish.

The start area in the park was nice and the organisation fine but the course itself was a bit dismal. Almost scenery free, a bit of parkland but little of Wolverhampton and it was remarkably twisty, mainly through housing estates where most of the ‘support’ came from slightly bemused residents peering out from behind their curtains.

Ii is true that I often like a bit of dismal but preferably straight and dismal, twists and turns just interrupt your stride and tire you out. The worst of which was a short out and back around some parked cars in a cul-de-sac, that appears to have been intended for the marathon runners only, on their second lap, lucky them, but it seems we all ended up doing it, lucky us.

It was quite a small event. 255 in the marathon, 796 in the half marathon, 530 cyclists doing 19.4km and one wheelchair. Apparently Hugh Porter was there, I assume he was cycling and not running. There were also 23 relay teams which they set off first, which gave us something to chase and pass. Finally there was a group of lads dressed up as the Jamaica Bobsled Team complete with bobsled; they were in for a long hard morning.

Drinks stations were bountiful and they had bottles but they’ll get crucified for leaving the tops on, which will have left a course resembling a bed of nails for the later runners.

At half way the housing estates disappeared and instead we went uphill. Long dragging uphills that just kept coming and coming with very little down, which made me think the flat first half of the race must actually have been downhill.

I recall going through a place called Billbrook but other than that I had no idea where we were most of the time. We certainly didn’t really get to see such of Wolverhampton which I think contributed to the lack of supporters along the route. At least I haven’t got to go around twice like the marathoners. The last mile or so was better, apart from its uphill nature and the finish in West Park was pretty good.

The hills and the turns meant that this wasn't going for be the sort of course on which I’d improve on last week’s time at total flat Fleetwood. So to be only 40 seconds down is a result of sorts but I resist doing the ‘Mobot’ like almost everybody else is. I’m not sure if the Jamaica Bobsled Team had the energy to do that when they came in four and a half hours after they started. Ouch.

I was handed my Greggs goodie bag. Sponsored by Greggs, I ask you. I was expecting a sausage roll but thankfully didn't get one. Instead, just a drink, some chocolate shortbread and a bag of crisps. Crisps that MD helped himself too, dragging them out of my goodie bag with his teeth. He and Doggo got to eat them eventually, Ready Salted are not really my flavour.

The T-shirt was fine but the medal was a bit naff, very cheap looking. All in all though, a well organised if uninspiring event.