Tag Archives: new forest half marathon

The long quick run – New Forest half marathon race report

Sorry for the lack of updates. This has been for a number of reasons:

1) We’ve just moved house and I now have a commute
2) We’re less than three weeks away from having a baby
3) Work has been manic

This does mean that I had a two week “taper” period and that the last run I did before today’s half marathon was the 11.5 miler a couple of weeks ago.

So, it was with some nerves, Sensei Paul, and a pain-free drive down to the New Forest that we braced for the half marathon. It was a beautiful autumn morning – cool, crisp, bright sunshine and blue skies. The crowds were out in force. We had had a light breakfast and I’d had a bonus rice krispie bar before the race, but was otherwise running as I had trained – mostly on empty. I took my place with the ‘120+’ minute finish time staggered staring place as Paul dodged up to find the 80 minuter starting point (!), fired up RunKeeper and Mumford & Sons… and sooner than I thought possible, we were off.

The race was ‘chip-timed’ but only at the start and finish, so RunKeeper and my trusty £8 digital watch were providing the split information and helping me manage my pace. I’d said to Sensei that I wanted to maintain a pace between 6m and 6m15 per km for the race duration – which would see me hit my 2h20minute target. Of course, in the headiness of the actual race conditions, I fired on much quicker – managing a 5.36 pace through to 5k, 5.46 through to 10k, 5.56 through to 15k and 5.58 through to 16k – the 10 mile mark. All of these translated to personal bests for me! Which was fantastic, but also slightly misjudged… and of course the final 5k felt reasonably gruelling.

The race split into three broad phases for me:

The first 10k – exhilirating,fast, passing lots of people and maintaining reasonable pace.

The next 6k – starting to get passed by the runners that had paced themselves better and struggling a bit with endurance

The last 5k – gruelling endurance, fuelled by determination and a handful of jelly babies at mile 10, and filled with the satisfaction of overtaking the people who had mis-paced themselves and were now walking

Of particulate note was the last 500m – marked as the last 0.1 of a mile – should have been 160m! But managed a sprint finish at the end, which was particularly satisfying.

Time was 2h09.39 – you can find me on this site, race number 1555 at the New Forest Half Marathon. Full RunKeeper stats available here, but include splits below too.

GunPos No GunTime Surname Forename Gender Cat Team/Club Chip Pos Chip Time
1250 1555 2:10:33 David Armand M 1261 2:09:29

Sub 2h10!! A full 10 minutes better than hoped for at my most optimistic! About 2/3rds down the pecking order (about 1,800 ran), so a lot of room for improvement, but pretty pleased with myself.

Splits:

mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)
1 9:20 36
2 8:40 30
3 8:50 -12
4 9:09 28
5 9:19 -18
6 9:41 -1
7 9:30 -44
8 9:59 -46
9 10:51 89
10 10:48 1
11 10:58 3
12 10:50 -43
13 10:00 -24

Paul, of course, came third with a new personal best of 1h17.06 – and so was waiting for me at the finish – and got a very nice trophy.

I was pleased to finish without stopping, amazed with my time, and to be honest spent the whole day thinking I missed 2h10 by 33 seconds because I misread the charts. Sub 2h10 – woohoo! Next stop, sub 2h – which will be a target for next year, depending on how the baby and my running routine play together.

Thanks to all who have supported me, from my lovely wife, my reliable physio, my friends, extremely generous family, my colleagues at Brands2Life and all the people who sponsored, supported, encouraged, cajoled and otherwise helped me through this. Especial thanks to Mr and Mrs Sensei Paul for the challenge, encouragement, mentoring and a fantastic race weekend. It feels a fantastic achievement for me and I definitely have the race bug now (although we’ll see how I feel about that when the aches set in proper tomorrow).

Next time – more stretching, more training, setting up a playlist for the run in advance (much as I love Mumford, the album repeating three times was a bit much), and perhaps a bit more gentle pace at the start…

If you were waiting to see if I’d manage it to sponsor me, I have now – so chuck the cash in over here! Thanks again all.

p.s. I’m knackered now so reserve the right to edit this when I’m a bit more copus mentis…

Three weeks to go: training update

It’s been a mixed week of training. Monday’s 38ish minute 6k, Wednesday’s 35ish minute 6k (awesome!), Friday’s < 60 minute 10k (hurrah, on a roll)… all injury free and going well. So, to the Long Slow Run – commenced today, after breakfast (never a good thing for me at the moment)… and I powered through 15k in a not terribly impressive 100 minutes.

It was a little disheartening the extent to which my long-distance endurance has withered over the course of the injury… but I’m glad I pushed myself. On the original post-injury training plan I was only meant to be on 13k today, so have exceeded myself in both my recent LSRs.

That said, I need a rest day tomorrow and a lot of stretching before I start next week’s running training (which will also be interspersed with much carrying of boxes as I become a houseowner and move to the countryside all in one week!).

At least I’m once again reaching the point where I think of a 10k as an average distance run, which is a pretty invigorating feeling. I think I’ll be able to finish the half without a pause for walking – I hope so! – and with a little, little bit of luck it’ll be in under 2h30. Any hopes I had for a quicker speed are slightly dampened after today, but we will see!

Have you sponsored me yet, btw? Please, please do so here!

5 week LSR training for the half marathon

Right, here we go.

Having peaked early by running the full half marathon distance earlier in the year (twice!), injuring myself and been off running for the best part of the last couple of months, I need a running programme leading up to the New Forest Half in September. I made it out this morning for a more or less 30 minute 5k with no knee pain so think I can start to gradually build things up. Of course, I only have 5 weeks, and I’ll be moving over the course of that so I need to map out each weekend’s LSR. Here are my targets:

w/e 28 Aug – 7k (I’m still building up strength post-injury so think I need to restrain myself. May exceed if I feel able)
w/e 4 Sept – 10k
w/e 11 Sept – 13k
w/e 18 Sept – 15k

And I’ll taper off that last week ahead of the half marathon on the 26th. Mid week will involve runs of 5k to begin with, possibly upping to 10k is the strength builds (and I may struggle once the commute lengthens in mid September).

Sound like a plan? Wish me luck! Better yet, sponsor me here! I have a vague hope of making it to £1310 (£100 per mile and all that) but have a feeling my busy-ness will constrain fundraising.