Dead Runners society race report
Four Villages half marathon - sunday 21st January
2001.
One of my favourite races ruined by
the weather :-(
Evenin all
Tony here in Oxford after a rather tiring
weekend. The beautiful Shelley and I went up north to my home town of Warrington
on friday for a weekend of running and visiting the family. On friday night we
got to run with an Olympic marathon runner! Richard Nerurkar (5th in Atlanta)
has just written a book about marathon training and is busy promoting the book.
So he headed up to Warrington to have a run with and then talk to Spectrum
Striders running club. A nice talk, nothing about training that I haven't read
in a zillion Runners World articles but tales of how he prepared for races like
the olympic marathon were more interesting. We didn't just head up north to run
with a famous runner though, there was a BIG RACE yesterday which I wanted to
have a serious attempt at running fast.
The 4 Villages half marathon is one of the
best races of its type in NW England, when I used to live in Warrington I always
did this race and in the early 90s I set my 4 fastest ever half marathon times
in 1992-95 (all sub 1h24, pb of 1h22.51 in 1992). I finally think that I have
got some fitness back at last, I didn't think that 1h24 was possible but sub
1h30 looked like an attainable target. After some hard training and a week of
tapering I was raring to go when I woke up on sunday morning...
to see snow falling :-( Not a good sign for a
fast race, we headed off from my parents house to meet up with my old friend and
training partner Bernard and we travelled off to Helsby. A mixture of snow and
sleet was falling on the way there although it had stopped by the time we
arrived at the sports centre. Still very cold though so it was indoors for some
warmth until it was time to warm up. On with the race gear, I was one of the
braver ones wearing shorts although I had a long sleeved Helly-Hansen top under
my Spectrum Striders vest and I was wearing gloves as well. Lots of runners were
wearing hats and tights and tracksters, only the very brave and the stupid were
running in vest and shorts today. I did about 10 minutes jogging to try and warm
up then I lined up reasonably close to the front. 1800 had entered the race and
I knew that if I were to have any chance of breaking 1h30 I would need to get a
good start, last year I got too far back and spent most of the race overtaking
runners who had gone off too fast.
Off we went and once I got going I was going
hard and feeling good to be finally racing at last. For the first mile I was
moving along well along the main road through Helsby before heading out to run
in the countryside. First mile reached in 7.19, a minute faster than last year
when I did 1h34.45 so I had got my good start. Then off the main road and onto a
country lane and oh dear :-( A mixture of ice/snow/slush and mud was on the
road, everyone slowed down and I slowed down a lot :-( I don't run well in
slippery conditions, I certainly couldn't run 1h30 pace on a surface like this
in my racing shoes. The next 2 miles were pretty miserable as loads of runners
came past including quite a few friends and clubmates. I didn't see mile 2 but
2-3 took 16.51. I was seriously considering dropping out around here, I was
wondering what the quickest way back to Helsby was, if someone had offered me a
ride back then I would have accepted it. Still I have never had a dnf so I
slogged on the best I could, there was a brief respite from the slippery stuff
before 4 miles but not for long. 4th mile took 8.16 and before I got to 5 miles
Shelley caught me. I ran on with her for a bit before slowing down on a
particularly nasty bit of road. 5 miles in 41.02 with the last mile in
8.35.
Shelley wasn't too far ahead and I was able
to keep her in sight, 6th mile in 9.16 and 7th mile in 7.51 and I caught her
again. By now a gradual climb had started and it was pretty uncomfortable trying
to run uphill through the slush, you couldn't really get a good push off the
road as it was so slippery. 8th mile in 9.01 and another steep downhill, Shelley
pulled away and I tried to stay on my feet. Soon going uphill again, 9th mile in
8.43 and 10th mile in 9.07, 10 mile split was 1h25.00 just before I caught
Shelley again. A bit more uphill before finally a good bit of road to run on, I
was over the worst. I ran on with Shelley, I knew she was on for a good time.
11th mile in 8.17 and nearly at the start of the long downhill run in to the
finish. The left turn to start the descent took a lot longer to come at this
year's race speed than at last years. Shelley zoomed off down the steep hill and
I picked my way round the slippery bits, 12th mile in 7.48. For the last 1.1
miles the road looked clear so I speeded up to try and catch Shelley and I got a
stitch:-( Here I am running 90s a mile slower than I should have been and I get
a stitch :-( The stitch subsided and with half a mile to go I had caught
Shelley. 13th mile in 7.59 and round 2 more bends and there was the finish line
and it said 1h49.xx. Shelley crossed the line in 1h49.43 and I finished in
1h49.44. A new pb for Shelley by 4 minutes, she hasn't run a serious half
marathon for some time but any pb set in those conditions is pretty good. I was
just pleased to have finished at all, I was tired at the end but more
disappointed that all my training and the taper didn't bear fruit due to the
conditions. I finished 20 minutes slower than my target time and 15 minutes
slower than last year. Still Shelley finished 15 minutes faster than last year
so we came out even together :-) At least I did better than my 1h53 half
marathon personal worst. I think I will have to run another half marathon this
spring before I think about a marathon.
Back to Cambridge last night and then off to
Oxford to push back those frontiers of science this morning.
ORN 3.5 miles round the streets of Oxford
this evening.
bye tony....
Dr Tony Bell Tony@shells.demon.co.uk tony.bell@chemistry.oxford.ac.uk
Weekends - Milton, Cambridgeshire. Midweek, Dept of Inorganic Chemistry, Oxford
University. http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=227580
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