I won’t lie, I was properly nervous about this race. Though I do of course get nervous about marathons, it’s not that same.
With a marathon the nerves are more “ooof it’s such a long way, it’s going to be boring at times and mentally tough at others”. I don’t fear the pain or the exertion though. I know I can cope.
With a half marathon it’s different. I know I can run the distance, but it’s more can I run the distance going a lot faster? For most of a marathon I’m “plodding” (a very relative term him – plodding for me varies greatly according to my training), so it’s actually not that tough. It gets tough, of course, later.
If I want to “go for it” in a half marathon it’s a whole different bag. I can’t let my mind wander, I have to focus, I have to hold on to the speed, keep my legs pushing, embrace the pain. Something I hate doing.
So I was nervous. I had no excuse not to race this half marathon. I was in relatively good shape, I had the mileage under my belt and nothing in the near horizon to be careful about. As I rarely ever “go for it” during a race, this would be an ideal opportunity.
Though I knew I’d never PB and realistically I wasn’t even certain I could get close to a previous PB (1:34ish). But 1:37? This could be doable.
Kyle was also going to race it. It was a bit of a question mark for him how well he’d do. His only other half marathon had been during ridiculously windy and stormy weather along a coastline and he got 1:48ish so on a better day but a harder course? He much prefers short distances so who knows! He did say though, rather perceptively, that the race was too short for me and too long for him. It was all to play for.
Kyle and I headed out early and drove to Southampton. I forwent breakfast as I wanted more sleep. This was an error. Though all my long runs are done fasted, this was going to be a sustained effort and not fueling myself correctly was stupid of me. I don’t know quite what I was thinking.
We’d planned to park in the Solent Uni car park but had a quick change of mind as we thought we could sneakily park in a road outside of the city and then not be stuck with delays getting out. Another mistake. We parked somewhere that the course ran straight past, meaning we were deadlocked until 2.30pm!
Anyway it was nice to have a 30 minute walk beforehand. I hate driving to a race and literally just starting. My legs do not appreciate this. We hadn’t actually planned to have a 30 minute walk so this did leave things a little bit rushed though. Kyle still had to pick up his bib and we realised we’d need to go to bag drop as his dad wasn’t arriving in time for us to hand over our coats and bag. And of course we needed a final wee!
We literally had 5 minutes to get to the start funnel. We had to jump over the barrier which was all very dramatic. But actually nicely done as we ended up right next to Martin Yelling, Marathon Talk podcaster extraordinaire and someone I consider a friend after all the various times bits and pieces we’ve done together. I also saw my friend Dave and another lovely girl who I knew through Instagram. A nice friendly bunch!
We chatted and I mentioned I was too far forward but Martin assured me I was fine. He mentioned that he entered the race literally last minute that morning – he was just going to support his friend. Blimey!
Then we were off. Martin wished us well and zoomed off into the distance. I cranked up my speed and went for it. Far. Too. Fast. I was 7 minute miling. Ooof.
The first few miles have a few nice downhills and with big crowds cheering us on I just got carried away. Before the race I’d hoped to be 7.15-7.20min/mile pace… when I saw my watch I just decided to hang on. I felt good! (Two miles in feeling good, haha of course I did).
There were also some cheeky inclines as well. But I was riding on a fantastic wave of crowds cheering and adrenaline from the frantic start that we’d had. As I started to settle down I realised I might have overcooked it.
Mile three saw us going over Itchen Bridge which was grueling. A long incline that seems to just go on forever. But thankfully a decent downhill to loosen the legs after. I spotted some people I knew which was nice and tried to keep a smile on my face.
We ran past the water near Western Parade and it was lovely and flat for a moment. The weather was chilly and slightly breezy but otherwise perfect.
Mile 5 I was worrying now. I’d been running next to a fellow Hedgie, who I didn’t know. He looked to be running strong and running next to him pushed me on. But as I realised I’d gone out too fast and the hills seriously started sucking my energy he started to drift away from me. He kept looking behind him as he pulled gently away as if to say “come on, keep up” but I couldn’t.
Then back over Itchen Bridge again. I’d grabbed a water just before as I started feeling the heat. It was one of those pouch things and for the life of me I couldn’t work it out. Eventually I managed to tear a small hole in and squeezed out a tiny stream. Better than bottles or plastic cups though!
As I hit 10k and saw 43:xx it really hit me that I was running too fast too soon. I wasn’t going to sustain this. My official 10k PB is 42:52!
Mile seven and we were going through the Southampton St. Mary’s football stadium. It was a fantastic part of the race. Obviously I’m no football fan (though if I had to choose it’d be Liverpool I’d support because of my dad) but this was quite an experience. We ran into the stadium and along this very bouncy red turf. It was very quiet as no one was in there (asides from runners) and almost eerie.
Then we were back out and into the crowds again. A great thrill! As I headed off though that moment drifted away and I was back to thinking “oh God this hurts”.
We crossed another bridge and ran somewhere near Bitterne. My legs were tired now and my brain had fogged over. Negative thoughts clouded my mind. I’d screwed up. My pace had dropped. I also ran past the road the car was parked on and realised we wouldn’t be getting out anytime soon. Oh dear.
After a couple of miles of inner grumblings about how I hate running fast, hate half marathons, hate my stupid over-excitement… I realised how stupid I was being. I could claw this back. OK 1:37 might not be on the cars but who cares? Don’t give up, you lemon.
It also massively helped that on mile 10 as we ran through Riverside Park I saw lots of friend cheering friends. I slapped a big smile on my face, picked myself up and thought “just a parkrun to go”.
Then mile 11 happened and my god that was horrendous. Literally all uphill. It was so hard. I was familiar with the area so I knew just how long this godforsaken hill was.
When we finally reached the top I was onto mile 12 and recovering from the grind. My friend Mike breezed past and asked if I was OK – I said I was dying. Then as he overtook me, my brain kicked into gear and went “TWO MILES YOU CAN DO THIS”. The legs got on board and off I went.
I was able to scrape back some decent pacing and just road the “nearly finished” enthusiasm. I overtook Mike (he was marathoning, what a champ) and caught up with a guy from work. I spluttered “well done” and pushed pushed pushed. Someone yelled it was all downhill now and that spurred me on. Sub-7 minute miling! I was on fire. My work friend caught me back up and sped past – power to him! And I tried to keep up but he was long gone. That’s cool though as I wasn’t fading.
Finally got to the finish straight and WOW what a finish. The crowds were SO GOOD. They were banging on the barriers in a rythm that just got my feet going even faster. I knew Kyle’s dad, his partner, her son and Zack would be in the crowd so I smiled hard and tried to ignore the burning fire in my legs as I got myself to the finish.
WHEW. 1:35:44 – how on earth I have no idea! But what an absolute grind. I really had to fight for that. I walked to the medal and goodie bag area – spotted the brother of my lovely running friend Jo and had a nice chat and then hung about to wait for Kyle.
Kyle turned up not long after. He SMASHED his PB by almost 10 minutes by getting 1:39:52. Considering he wanted a sub 1:40 he was very jammy (this seems to be a trait for him with his 42:59 10k PB and 3:59:35 PB).
We had a lovely coffee with Kyle’s family and then headed off to see if we could try and get the car out early. After a 30 minute walk back down there we were told (very poitely) we couldn’t. It was our own fault so I wasn’t mad. So we turned around and walked back to go and get some food (after all the walking we did over 40,000 steps that day!!)
Kyle had a KFC and I had a naked burrito from Tortilla which was CRAZY GOOD. It was full of rice, pulled pork, pulled chicken, guacamole, sour cream, cheese and salsa. My god it was good.
We were pooped by the end of the day! So many steps! I have to say, I was quite surprised with just how hilly the Southampton Half was but it was well supported, well organised and a fun day.
I’m over the moon that I got the time I did – it was far faster than I thought, even without knowing how many hills they’d be! Not sure I’m tempted by the marathon though…
Have you ever done Southampton Half?
Have you ever made a parking mistake with a race?
What do you prefer to drink out of during a race?
My legs were already burning within the first five minutes. I managed to take the lead out of the females quite soon but there were only 36 other females and 85 runners in total.
I was actually quite surprised at how good my legs felt despite being asleep not very long ago and having run a marathon less than a week ago. I decided to just embrace it. The second mile is the worst. The hill you have to climb really does just go up, up, up. When you think you’re almost there, you turn a corner and see more to come. Definitely not a negative splitter!
The run felt good but tough. The final mile has a great downhill section to really gain some speed and then some cheeky inclines and then a straight run to the end. I somehow managed to get myself 8th place which was very cool.
My time was 22:13 – I’m over the moon with that! It certainly helps to have someone cheering you of course.
I’d describe myself as a small child in a sweet shop but realistically I was like Anna in a cake shop 😉 I was very excited. It was £4 entry and then we were able to wander round the different stalls and TRY ALL THE TASTERS. CAKE TASTERS. I mean, this is LITERALLY heaven. I realise I’m over-using the caps here, but seriously. Amazing.
There were so many different local cake bakers and sweet-related companies – it was so cool! Companies like The Gourmet Brownie Kitchen, The Game Bird Country Catering, The Rolling Scones…etc. etc.
As we hadn’t had any breakfast yet and were planning to head to Southampton for lunch we really tried to not go to mad on the tasters…but I did have my fair share of brownie chunks, cupcake bits, pieces of cookie and forks of cake slices. A decent breakfast I think! 😉
There was even a competition to guess the weight of a cake – to WIN the cake. Kyle and I took ages trying to decide. We’ve both done weights in the gym quite a bit so we were trying to imagine what dumbbell it would equate to.
This was some serious business! In the end we went for 3.5kg. It was apparently around 1.9kg, so we were quite a bit out…wishful thinking eh!
I could have spent a fortune at the festival. In the end I feel I was fairly restrained (for me!). I bought a blondie, a salted caramel brownie and a cookie.
Kyle got a cookie, a Ferraro Rocher brownie and we both shared a rocky road slice. We saved them though because we were heading for lunch straight after. The temptation to eat them though was SO strong.
It was a good thing that the traffic was horrendous getting into Southamtpon (because of the boat show) as it meant our stomachs could have a bit of time before our next onslaught of food. Because we’d enjoyed Red Dog Saloon so much the last time we went we decided to go there again. The last time we went Kyle had had these amazing deep fried ribs as a starter and we were both hankering after them again.
And for mains I went for chicken wings… I know, I’m so predictable. I went for quite a piggy 24. The options were 6, 12 or 24 and I knew 12 wouldn’t be quite enough. I wasn’t sure how spicy the buffalo would be so I went for half buffalo and half BBQ. I should have just had buffalo though, they were SO good and not spicy at all. I didn’t have any sides as I knew I’d literally have a lot on my plate. Kyle had a beasty burger and epic fries with bacon, cheese and chicken bits on.
I managed 19 wings before throwing the towel in. I didn’t want to push myself to discomfort – I had nothing to prove this time 😉 I eat for enjoyment after all. They were very tasty though and I ate all the buffalo ones. We were far too full for pudding, and we also had our sweet treats back at home. I can definitely see her going back here a few times!
When I did finally get out it was blue skies and only a little breezy. I had some grand ambitions of doing 15 miles but after running 10 miles on Thursday evening and being a week from the marathon I sensibly decided 12 would be quite enough. I know for me this high mileage so soon is a bit reckless so I need to be careful. Injuries are easily come by for me.
Annoyingly my headphones ran out of battery four miles in but it was actually quite nice to have a “silent” run. I just relaxed and let my mind wander. Though I could definitely feel my legs getting tired towards the end. I was glad to stop. It was not one of those “I can run forever runs”! But a solid run nonetheless.
I met my two colleagues on the train and on arrival at Brighton we walked from the station and to the conference. We grabbed a coffee en route because caffeine and headed inside for one of many interesting talks regarding search optimisation (all to do with digital marketing… topics such as what makes good content, micro influencers, virtual reality and voice technology with search and things like that).
I felt overwhelming uncool amongst the very young and hip crowd that seemed to dominate the conference, but I held my head high and convinced myself I deserved to be there. But seriously, everyone looked very trendy and hipster. Beards ahoy!
It was just all so interesting and exciting. I’m sure the novelty of this career area will wear off eventually but I’m just loving what I do right now. I find it fascinating.
It was all very tasty and felt like such a treat on a Friday afternoon. We then walked back to the conference to continue on with more talks. I parted ways with my colleagues as they’re from a different department and our talk choices weren’t the same. I noticed how suddenly there was a lot more free beer and Prosecco going on now it was post-lunch!
I made the unwise decision to have a cheeky Prosecco and it took a lot more work for me to concentrate during a particularly dull talk (ironically on content optimisation…). After struggling it out for a few more talks I decided to leave. The weather was lovely and I walked down the Brighton prom to meet my friend, Charlotte. I’d already pre-arranged to stay over her and her husband’s flat that evening. It was so nice to be able to see her so randomly in the week. Normally I’d need to wait until our usual uni meet-ups but since I was in Brighton already it made sense.
We headed back to her house where Charlotte and her husband (Paddy) ordered pizzas and I ordered a Deliveroo from a really tasty Arabian restaurant. ALL THE MEAT.
It was so tasty. Lots of skewers, koftas and chicken wings on a bed of rice with the tiniest side salad. The meat to salad ratio was quite a way off! Even after all that food I was still good to go for a nice walk and an ice cream down the seafront. I went for a scoop of salted caramel and a scoop of raspberry cheesecake. Delicious!
It was such a lovely evening of good food, catching up and easy TV watching. Perfect.
It’s all run on tarmac and is fairly undulating. It’s 2.5 laps of the park and is a nice one for spectators as they can easily see the runners several times. Unfortunately I missed Charlotte and Paddy cheering me on TWICE. I don’t know how I didn’t spot them! Apparently I looked like I was “in the zone” so maybe I was just too focused.
I did a short warm-up (it was quite chilly once we’d stopped walking) and then headed to the start. I heard the lady in front of me saying she wasn’t going to make Spin after parkrun… Wow that’d be keen! Anyway I had told myself just to run how I felt and at the start I got caught up in the excitement and realised I was running fairly quickly.
That was soon put to an end as we reached the first incline. The inclines were gradual and fairly long… but it was a beautiful course and the downhills were nice.
I felt strong and attempted to pick people off in front of me. A man with a buggy zoomed past me and I tried to keep him in my sights, though never managed to catch up with him. There were a few supporters cheering us round which was nice and strangely a man on the sidelines counting us as we ran past (I remember a man doing this at the New Forest Marathon as well actually – is this a new thing??).
Then we said goodbye and I had to quick march to the train station (with a Starbucks stop en route of course). I just made my train… well, might as well finish how I started this trip eh!
Sunday saw me waking up at the lovely time of 8.15am to meet my running friends for a long run. A few of us were meeting a fellow Bournemouth marathon trainee half-way through his run in order to help him through his 20 miler.I only really wanted 8-12 miles. I ran to the meeting spot, which was only 1.5 miles away and then met up with the running crew
We ran a lovely, albeit undulating, route through to Southampton and back round again. This did mean, of course, running across the dreaded Itchen Bridge (if you’ve ever done the Southampton 10k/half/marathon you’ll know about this). It wasn’t too bad. The run was really nice and relaxed and I managed to chip out 12 miles exactly in the end.
Then the rest of the day was spent walking Alfie and packing to move out. Not particularly relaxing I must say… but needs must!
I mean, those hair styles…
I’ve got through Get Out (really creepy but really good) and the Lego Batman Movie (very funny). It’s actually a really good way to stay motivated on that god-awful machine. It also makes me keen to get back on it as I’ll only allow myself to watch these movies on the elliptical machine. Happy days…
My partner in crime ordered the “Ban Ki-Mmm” which had Korean pork belly amongst other treats on top. I did get a little food envy on seeing his but mine was SO tasty it was only very brief. He upgraded to sweet potato fries. I have to say, usually I’m not a huge burger fan (I prefer more toppings/protein to carb ratio…), but this was heavenly.
I got a cookie dough based sundae (zomggggggg) and he got a baked skillet cookie with ice cream. Mine contained hot cookie dough at the bottom, chocolate and vanilla ice cream and vanilla gelato as well as cookie pieces and molten white chocolate and regular chocolate drizzled on top. Dear god it was good. I couldn’t quite finish it all. For once my stomach said no. But I gave it my best stab! I prioritised the best bits!