Happy Monday from a battered and bruised runner! Well that is how I feel today……
North Lincs Half Marathon…….. it is about a 70 min drive for us and we were planning on just heading there on Sunday morning until a friend who had pulled out due to injury offered us her hotel room. In hindsight this was fantastic and if I did this race again I would book a hotel – so many, many thanks T 🙂
Saturday night was carb loading with pizza (no alcohol) and an early night. Not unsurprisingly, I didn’t sleep well at all. I was up at 4am, then dozed a bit till 6am when I gave up and got up. Breakfast was eaten and plenty of fluids and we left the hotel to go and meet up with others at the stadium. For others thinking about this race, the Travelodge is fantastically placed (we even popped back for pre race loo stop because of the queues at the stadium!).
We joined in the throng walking towards the start line and then tried to start making our way through to the right section for our predicted finish times, but before we made it the gun went and the race was on! Note for future years – get to the start earlier.
My race plan
I did my first half marathon last October at Bridlington. I was aware that I am not in as good shape as I was then, but that was a hilly course, this was flat. I’d hoped to be able to bring it in under 2 hours. My OH (doing his first half) wanted to set off with me but I knew he was capable of a better pace. I’d decided that I would try to pace him to 6 / 7 miles at an average of a 9 min mile then encourage him to go off on his own. I felt that this would give him a really good chance of a sub 2 hour.
That bit worked – we’d averaged a pace of 9:02 min / mile by the half way point where I encouraged him to go off. For several more miles I could still see him a little way in front, but then I started to really struggle around 10 / 11 miles. At one point I thought my legs were literally going to stop working! You can see on my splits where I try to push on but then struggle again. At this point it was head down and put one foot in front of the other all the way to the end.
I had one stop when I came across a chap I know from parkrun who had fallen and hit his head. I stopped to make sure he was OK and only carried on once he was back on his feet and with medics (he did carry on and finish – going to hospital later to have the wound glued back together!) but that wasn’t very long at all.
My finish time: 02:01:47
Finish line goodies – medal (a very nice one), a tech t-shirt (size chosen when entering and they made sure they gave you the right one), muffin and water – along with a goody back with a few other bits and pieces in it. All in – excellent!!
We went back to the hotel to get sorted and go home and unfortunately I took a turn for the worst again and felt very, very ill. I’d been trying to keep eating and drinking – both during the run and afterwards so I really don’t know why I’m like this. I threw up once and actually felt better after that. I’d put down previous episodes to not eating at all and not drinking enough, however this can’t be the case this time. I do have thyroid disease and am starting to wonder if it is something to do with that…..
If you are looking for a half marathon to enter next year I would definitely recommend the North Lincs Half.
a mile run 
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