Retford Half Marathon

The Retford Half Marathon goes ahead. It is run by Retford Athletic club and starts again at Retford Oaks Academy where this year we manage to arrive early enough to get in the car park.

The race opens with a brief trip through the town before heading out on to country roads, with one of those annoying out and back sections in the middle to make up the distance. It is on closed roads for the majority of the route with just the last mile back to Retford on opened roads where you need to precariously time your overtaking while running on the narrow pavement.

My time is 1:45:09 this year. That’s not bad and just 9 seconds down on last year, so at least I’m consistent for once. They hand out a running vest at the end, which is different, but won’t be of much use to the majority.

Leicestershire Half Marathon

I return to Prestwold Hall for RunThrough's Leicestershire Half Marathon. This is of course purely out of necessity and L joins me in the race as well, out of necessity. To be honest it doesn't seem quite as dull after doing it last year probably because I mow know what is coming and can mentally prepare for it.

The one thing that wasn’t quite so bad last year was the wind, which is really hard to run against this year but it’s very nice when it’s behind you and pushing you along. The effect of the wind is probably reflected in my time of almost 1:49, four minutes slower than last year.

Watford Half Marathon

Sunday sees us down south at the Watford Half Marathon which has a very civilised start time of 10.30am. Which is a good job really as it's quite a drive for us down to Watford.

It starts in Cassiobury Park which, given the recent weather, is a soggy mess and the first challenge is not starting the race with wet feet as we head to the Race HQ to pick our numbers up. Then it’s a paddle back to one of the two start lines. These are colour coded Red and Blue with the vague instruction that the Red one is for Veterans. Which I think means us.

The two starts are both on footpaths which merge together before the race leaves the park. Getting a good start position is key because the footpaths are narrow and the terrain either side of them is muddy and unrunnable. So putting a foot off the footpath to overtake was unwise and tended to see you sliding backwards rather than moving up through the field. This meant it was difficult for me to latch on to one of the pacemakers and I watched them gradually pulling away from me.

Once out of the park we headed out into suburbia where there was at least scope to overtake even if my desired pacemaker was now long gone. Then suburbia gave way to countryside where the real fun began. Now I thought Watford was a flat part of the country, how wrong was I.

The race guide merely stated that the course is through pleasant undulating countryside. Although it did go on to say that 'due to the severity of some of the hills this course is not suitable for wheelchairs'. Always read the small print as they say, even if you don't have a wheelchair. It was very hilly and just how hilly seemed to come as a surprise to many, not just me, given that the hills were accompanied by some colourful language (I mean encouraging words) from my fellow runners.

Even when you get back to the park for the final mile, it is largely all uphill. I finish in 1:48:45 marooned almost equally between the 1:45 and the 1:50 pacers. L and her sister come in together about 45 minutes behind me although according to the results, when they come out later, she beat me by about five minutes. Perhaps I missed the shortcut. 

Folksworth 15

Today we run the 31st Folksworth 15 organised by Yaxley Runners with a field of 500 runners.

Note to self. If we do this race again arrive early, very early. I mean we aren't exactly late but everyone is far more clued up than us meaning all the nearby parking has already been taken by the time we arrive. We are directed out of the village, out to the 14 mile point and then down a country lane where we park on a grass bank. It would be a long walk back to Race HQ but the organisers have kindly laid on a car to get us there. Obviously we need to go ready to race, so we take a bag with us to drop in the baggage store.

Once at the Race HQ, which is the local school, we pick up our numbers and are then faced with a 15 minute walk\jog to the start, three quarters of a mile away. As it’s a two lap course it begs the question why not remove the walk to the start and call it 16 miles? I'm sure there's a reason...

It's a cold day and icy underfoot in places. I think many races would have been cancelled given the way we had to slither down some of the hills, so I'm thankfully that the organisers had the guts not to call this one off. We needed the run even if we do have to skate parts of it although apparently despite the conditions someone broke the course record.

The 15 miles, with its three challenging hills per lap, is a decent test of where my marathon training is at. If intend to run my marathon at 9:00 pace again, or hopefully better, then to not drop below 8:50 here and to average 8:15 is definitely promising as I finish, back at the school, in 2:03:45.

Afterwards I get a lift back to the car and release the dogs. Then the three of us clap everyone else, including L, through 14 miles just as they head up the final hill to the finish.

Sherwood Pines New Year 10k

On Sunday we head up to Sherwood Pines for their New Year 10k, which is organised by those nice people at Nice Work. It is a nice leg stretch on a route that contains a lot of the Sherwood Pines parkrun.

They mess up on the course though. It starts near the café and the opening straight leads you on to a circular course which you do once for the 5k or twice for the 10k before finishing with the same straight section to the finish.

Mathematicians among you will have immediately noticed that the total length of the 10k therefore cannot be twice the length of the 5k. It would require another out and back of the straight\finish section to be so, therefore one of the distances is going to be inaccurate. This clearly is the 10k which ends up being only 9.5k. Which makes my time of 47:22 look even worse.

As we’re both marathon training, we then grab the dogs and do another 5k-ish lap of the course, just for fun.