Half Marathon a Month Challenge #31 - Dundee & The Eastwood Loop - July 2016

The original plan was for both Chris and I to run the Dundee Half Marathon this month, as we had done on a glorious sunny day last year for month #19. However, due to a change in circumstances I was going to be out of the country that weekend, so Chris went ahead on his ownsome. In the absence of any other formal event being available, I had to return again to the famous Eastwood Loop!


Dundee Half Marathon - 17th July 2016

I participated in this excellent event for the first time last year, but this was the third time in a row that Chris had run the 13.1 miles from Camperdown Country Park to the beach at Broughty Ferry.

Normally Chris would drive north from Falkirk on the day of the race, but due to circumstances he had to travel south from Aberdeen this year. Setting off with very little fuel in his car he struggled to find a petrol station en route. The car was practically running on fumes when he finally located one in Laurencekirk. 

And the drama wasn't over! On the way up to the start line from the car park, Chris lost his wallet. When at the end of the race he realised what had happened he approached the lost and found in the vain hope it had been handed in. "Are you Chris Marsh?", said the bloke. The wallet had been found and all was well !

Usually this event takes pace in temperatures that are 20+ C, but this year it was a much more pleasant 17C. I'm personally looking forward to getting back up to Dundee next year for another shot at it.

Results:

Chris - 02:00:40 

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Eastwood Loop Half Marathon -  30th July 2016

So, back to the old reliable Eastwood Loop Half , which I had run for the first time on the very last day of January this year. As you may recall there is a looping route starting and finishing outside my home which is exactly one third of a half marathon. So, if you run three loops then bingo! 

In January I was very slowly coming back from a very problematic knee injury and my slow time reflected that. On this occasion my knees were in better in shape, but I was still pretty unfit and the time below is an indication of that. I still ran a PB for this route though! 

In January I received some moral support from my daughter Scarlett, who ran the last third with me. Once again she joined me for part of the run, but this time it was for the first third, and this time she was cycling!

Results:
Frank - 02:27:08 

It was good to get July out of the way. Now on to August (and the next blog post), when Chris and I planned to run the Perth Half Marathon in kilts...

Half Marathon a Month Challenge #30 - Hadrian's Wall June 2016

Hadrian's Wall Half Marathon - 26th June 2016

I found this event when browsing through one of those running sites which lists races taking place across the UK each month. I think it was this one..... 

http://www.marathonrunnersdiary.com/races/uk-marathon-list.php

It was an attractive proposition for a few reasons...

1. It wasn't too far away 
2. It was set in a very nice part of the world, taking place in and around Northumberland National Park
3. There was the historical aspect to it. Romans, etc...
4. It was more than just your standard road race plod, as it had a mixed terrain route. (We had never run on a course like this before)
5. Because of reason 4. there would be no pressure on achieving PBs! The only fair comparison would be to any finishing times from the same event in the future.

Because of the location of the event (in the middle of nowhere!) we had to drive there. After I picked Chris up about 6.30am, we made our way south, stopping briefly for coffee and carbs at an M74 service station en route.

Thanks to the wonders of SatNav we had no problems in finding the race starting point at Haltwhistle. As you can see from this picture of Chris, we got there nice and early before almost any other runners had arrived.  

It was a lovely morning (but very chilly), and we took in the surrounding scenery until our fellow competitors started to turn up in numbers, and the start time of the race duly arrived. 

I had been told that although there was a significant part of this course which was run on grass, and over stiles and the like, that it wasn't classed as a true 'Trail Run', because there were some sections of real roads, and tracks in the national park. However, as you can see from these photos published by Sport Sunday , there was still a big 'trail' flavour to this race! 

I was loving this event! The scenery was great, there were interesting aspects to the course that no other previous event had. (e.g. climbing over walls and fording small streams), and I even spotted some wild horses grazing happily next to the running route.

In terms of performance, well, as the first part of the race mainly takes place over the grassy route in the national park, there are plenty of opportunities to take a wee breather when climbing over walls, etc, so by the time I'd reached the forest tracks in the second half I still had plenty of energy conserved. In fact, as you can see from the Pace Graph below, I ran the second half of the race faster than the first half! I'm not sure if I have ever done this in a half marathon before. I'll have to check the archives.

The route at the finish had a nice steep hill at the end, just to make sure you remembered that you had done some proper running that day. I could see Chris had already finished and was at the top of the hill to greet me. The only thing left to do was to pick up our souvenir running shirts of the event and head back north.

You may have noticed that, unlike with most of our other half marathons, there was a distinct lack of alcohol involved at any time either before or after this race. It can be done you know! 

Results:

Chris - 02:19:49

Frank - 02:27:13

Half Marathon a Month Challenge #29 - Edinburgh May 2016

Edinburgh Half Marathon - 31st May 2016

A return to the EMF (Edinburgh Marathon Festival). Both of us for the third time. In 2013 this was my very first half marathon event, and then I ran it again in 2015. Chris had previously run it in 2014 and 2015.

Last year's Edinburgh Half Marathon was where I set my current Personal Best time of 01:54:29, but there was no way I was going to get close to that in 2016. For reasons well documented in previous posts I had struggled to record sub 2 hour times since then, managing it only once in Aberfeldy in September 2015.

In fact, I feel my whole philosophy/motivation is changing now, and I seem to be settling in comfortably to a 'finishing lines, not finishing times' approach.  So, as well as being my Personal Best, it could be that the May 2015 time in Edinburgh ends up being my Lifetime Best. If it does then I'm quite happy with it. Not too bad for an over 50s bloke who could hardly run the length of himself only 3 years before it.

Way back when it seemed a reasonable idea, I had actually entered the full Edinburgh Marathon for this weekend, and not the half. However, after the PTSD (and injury!) brought on by the Robin Hood Half Marathon back in September 2015, I knew I would never be able to run a marathon in May (or perhaps again), so I wisely entered the half marathon as an alternative.

One of the challenges of the Edinburgh Half Marathon is that it starts at 8am! If you don't actually live in Edinburgh it obviously means that you either have to stay over the night before (which I did in 2013 and 2015), or travel through (from Glasgow in my case) at some god forsaken hour on the Sunday morning. 

This year though there was an opportunity for compromise. As Christopher resides in Falkirk, which is a lot closer to Edinburgh than Glasgow, we decided it would be a good idea if I stayed at his on the Saturday night. It would of course be a relatively sensible night, with some pasta carb loading, and perhaps a couple of small beers before an early night in prep for an early start. It didn't turn out that way.

If you have read previous posts in this blog you may, quite reasonably, have got the impression that the running component of the Half Marathon a Month Challenge was secondary to other more social aspects. Obviously when we have completed another monthly half marathon we are imbued with a great sense of achievement, and have a desire to celebrate that achievement. We're also thirsty!  It's understandable then that we imbibe a few post run beers/wines in those circumstances. Sometimes we exhibit this behaviour in advance of events, which isn't quite as justifiable, or sensible. This is normally because we are running at a location that is far from home. As we stay there (at least) one night before, we inevitably end up in a pub or two. Examples of this would be Barcelona, Skye, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Mull, Preston and Bratislava! 

Our original, fairly sensible, plan started to go awry when Chris said that his Green Party comrades (are they called comrades in the Green Party?) had organised a post election soirée for that very Saturday night. As Chris had put a lot into campaigning during the elections he obviously wanted to attend, and he wangled me an invitation too. Various nonsense was talked about us excusing ourselves early because of our running commitment, but the food, drink and craic was great, so although we were in the first group of leavers, it wasn't exactly early. 

After a few hours sleep, it was up for coffee and carbs. Chris's son, Jamie, very generously got up at the same early hour and drove us to the top of Easter Road, fairly close to the start line. Unlike 2015 there were no major storm warnings, but it was still a wee bit chilly at that time of the morning, so the ubiquitous bin bag came in handy again! 

It's a huge event, and it takes a while to get from your starting pen to the actual start line, but 7 minutes after the official starting gun we were under way.

Very little to report on the actual run itself. Well maybe a couple of things.

Firstly, there were thankfully no 7km or 8km shut downs for me during this one. However, there was a point at 14km in where my body said that maybe it's time to have a wee walk. Sensibly I listened to my body and took a break from running for about 300 metres. After that I felt great, and I picked up my pace quite significantly in the last 5km of run. I felt really good at the finish line in spite of the previous night's indulgences.

For those familiar with the Edinburgh Half Marathon, you'll know that the last 6km is split into two 'out and back' halves of 3km each. I had worked out that based on his likely finishing time it would be inevitable that I would pass Chris while I was on the outbound 3km and he was on the inbound 3km. The question was, at what point would I see him? It turned out that we passed each other when I was at around 17km and Chris was at 19km, which meant he was about 12 minutes ahead of me at that stage. (Turned out to be 13 mins at the end). Of course this meant that we had both under performed relative to 2015, but Chris not quite as much as me of course! He did concede later that the previous evening's activities had taken a wee bit of a toll, which is almost unheard of for him!

So, there was nothing left to do now but to replenish our electrolytes as quickly as possible. Fortunately at the finishing area of the event there is an excellent selection of fine beers and ciders available for purchase and consumption, and we made the most of this opportunity. 

As is now traditional (i.e. we did it last year) we headed into town to visit a few hostelries....

Halfway House

The Bow Bar

Malt Shovel Inn

Then it was back to Falkirk where we met up with Robyn, Clare and Scarlett for a good afternoon's chat!

So, number 29 was in the bag. Roll on number 30, which would take place (just) south of the border.  

Results:

Chris - 02:00:31

Frank - 02:13:16