Sheffield Half Marathon

Today I’m entered in the Sheffield Half Marathon, which is one of my favourite races, and I intend to run it despite suffering with a locked up calf as recently as Monday. I’ve had the emergency massage and plenty of rest (well five days), now it’s just a question of crossing the fingers and winging it. If it goes wrong it doesn’t really matter as I don’t have any other imminent races in the diary.

I don’t wing it very far. In fact, the more I warm up the tighter the calf gets. It would probably be sensible to have pulled out then but that’s not really my style.

When the start is delayed, this simply gives me more time to warm up and to hopefully run off the problem or to make it worse. I’ve never been able to run it off before and at Nairn the full 13.1 miles didn't shift it. Today is no exception. 

So by the time we start my calf is well and truly seized up but I give it a go anyway. Drawing on the experience from Nairn, I decide to see if I can hobble the first mile. When I’ve got that far I decide to try and hobble as far at the end of Ecclesall Road where the climbing starts. I get that far and then think, why not see how it is on the hill, you know the four mile long hill. So I do and so on. It’s amazing what you can achieve.

I’m actually rather good at hobbling and it doesn’t actually get any worse until about the 12 mile point, when it gets really sore, but then there’s only a mile to go...

So I made it round but obviously it wasn’t quick but as I say this is one of my favourite races. See you next year.

Sheffield Half Marathon

I do like the Sheffield Half Marathon and I did like the old course but there is something rather beautifully masochistic about the course change they introduced three years ago when Run For All, the legacy organisation for the late Jane Tomlinson, got involved and decided to embrace Sheffield’s inner hilliness.

It’s possibly the way they quietly ratchet up the intensity as they take you out of the city along Arundel Gate and onto the long stretch that is Ecclesall Road, which all takes place on a slight incline. Then the slight gets less slight and much more significant as the road rises skywards, getting gradually steeper and steeper. Until by mile four you are on your hands and knees crawling up the one mile stretch that they call the 'King\Queen of the Hill' before eventually you can kiss the tarmac at the top of Ringinglow. From where you look forward to plummeting down... the scenic flat bit.

Allegedly, after the scenic flat bit, it’s all downhill to the finish, only it isn’t. It remains frustrating undulating and deliciously painful right up to the finish line.

Plus there is an additional nuisance factor this year, a dose of very unseasonal Yorkshire weather. Obviously in Sheffield in April you expect wind, rain and maybe hail or possibly snow, or all four at once but this year Sheffield is struck by a heat wave which really wasn’t that welcome.

I survive though and cross the finish line where I am bested by last year’s time by a three mere seconds but you still can’t beat it as a location for your Sunday morning jog and they’ve even given us a wearable t-shirt this year.

My only wish is that they would put as much effort into the mile markers as they do the km markers that map out the last 10k, for which there is an additional prize. These are all nice sail banners whereas the thirteen mile markers appear to be an assorted collection of whatever was lying around at the back of the race director’s garage.

Yorkshire Half Marathon

Today is the Yorkshire Half Marathon which is actually the Sheffield Half Marathon in disguise. I wonder if there’s some politics behind this name change because it is most definitely Sheffield's race and Sheffield really deserves full billing in the name given how well it is supported by the locals. Perhaps it is an attempt to distance itself from the famous water debacle of 2014 after which the organisers and the race route all changed but half the point of these types of events is to promote the name of the city they are in.

It’s just me running today as L has decided that the combination of a heavy cold and her various injuries is too much to drag around the course. So the dogs get a reprieve from being home alone and get to join in with the supporting.

As with most of these big races, the toilets were a slight problem. There probably were enough but as they were widely scattered which meant queues snaking all over the place.

The start is right in the city centre on Arundel Gate and the finish is on Pinstone Street but from there there’s an out and back on the always well supported Eccleshall Road with a mid-race loop taking you up to the edge of the Peak District. This is the interesting bit.

Interesting in that is consists of a five and a half mile hill taking you all up to the village of Ringinglow. It was a long challenging climb that turned many grown men and women to tears. I quickly realised that it’s a good job that L had opted out of doing this with her dodgy ankle but personally I loved the new cheeky course but then I do love a bit of a hill. Note to self: I must try and take it easy given the state of my calves.

The support from the people of Sheffield was amazing and there were crowds nearly all the way along the route. Although the macabre bunch did seem to congregate most greatly on the hilly bits but they were all very vocal in cheering us up it and apparently the view from the top makes it all worthwhile. Yeah, whatever. Ask me again later.

Post-hill it’s largely flat across the moors before we start plummeting down the other side

back to Sheffield. It is here that I latch on to the 1:45 pacer, who is evidently planning a negative split given how far he is off his target pace. Clearly he’d done the hill at a steady pace and now he set off like a greyhound on steroids. I simply couldn't keep up with his downhill pace as I'm not that hot at plummeting but I (almost) managed to keep him in sight until the finish.

I often complain about not seeing the mile markers and I again struggle here. They were on the same sail banners as loads of sponsors’ logos and that’s probably why I missed half of them. There were also some showing a countdown from 10k which were very clear to see as they were twice the size of the mile markers. Wrong way round surely!

The water stations were excellent and had the entertaining addition of some large blue bins for target practice with your used bottle. They were actually so big it was difficult to miss.

I cross the line in 1:46 again, the same as in Cardiff, where I’m handed my medal and a florescent lime green monstrosity that appears to be masquerading as the race t-shirt. Not sure what am I supposed to do with that?

I am then reunited with L and the boys after waiting an inordinate time for my bag from the baggage bus. It may just have been my baggage lorry but it was utter chaos as they couldn't find loads of people's bags. This means my plan to have warm clothes ready had backfired massively but overall it was a great race.

Sheffield Half Marathon

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" - Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 13th May 1940.

Of course he never, to my knowledge, ran a half marathon.

Today we’re in Sheffield, without the dogs, as we’re expecting a fair hike from parking at the Sheffield Arena to the start line inside the Don Valley Stadium. The distance is not too bad in the end but the race isn’t particularly dog friend. This is no great surprise with nearly 6000 entrants.

Starting the race in the stadium is a nice idea, if a little congested. After which it’s a three or so mile tour of some of the least aesthetically inspiring parts of Sheffield. Things pick up when we leave all that industrial dereliction behind and head into the city centre. Which apart from being much better on the eye becomes a bit of a tour of some of our favourite Sheffield watering holes - Ahh the Old House, the Devonshire Cat, over there the Sheffield Tap etc etc.

Also once in the city centre the crowd come into play and the sheer weight of numbers is worth an extra gear. Mind you if the city centre was an extra gear, the Ecclesall Road was a whole extra engine. The support there was simply awesome.

 

There are downsides of course. A race of this stature shouldn't have drinks in cups, which are clumsy and difficult to drink from. I have to stop to drink from them, which costs time. They should also offer sports drinks but the sponges were a positive. I do like a sponge.

I also didn't think the mile markers were terribly visible and missed a lot of them. This made it difficult to keep track of how I was doing and perhaps is why, rather unbelievably, with 2 miles to go I was on for a 1:41.

Then nine minutes to the 12 mile marker seemed to have put paid to anything under 1:43 or so I thought. As the 13 mile point and the condemned Don Valley came into view a few minutes earlier than expected, I come to the conclusion the ‘12’ had wandered from where it was meant to be and a time of 1:41:46 is mine.

Even I’m impressed. I would have taken a time 1:45 in my arms and snogged the life out of it. A 1:41, considering my current state of unfitness, is well... in for a very good night indeed.

L of course has been just as injured, if not more so than me. She had threatened to take a book around to read as she was ambling round. Yet, I think, even she was pleased with her performance. 

We both get a post-race massage which should help prevent those injuries reoccurring.

The stadium finish was great and it’s scandalous that the stadium will not be around to host the race next year. Which poses the organisers a bit of a challenge for the future. Good luck with that.

The wristband at the end was also a nice touch. Not that I spotted them but L did and got me one. Sadly though both the small t-shirts and more horrifically the water had run out by the time she finished and there were still almost a thousand people behind her.

On the whole a well organised and enjoyable race with a nice-ish route, good bits and bad bits like most races. I guessed a race in Sheffield was unlikely to be flat and it certainly wasn't but it was probably as flat as they’re going to get it.