Alloa Half Marathon 22/03/09
Think that's Ben 2/3s along on rightWell it was a real stress to get there on time with all the family, and to get parked (in 3rd car park we tried - guess it's not a big town for having 1000 runners descend on the place) but I made it to the start line of the Alloa half-marathon with 4 minutes to spare. Even managed to meet up with a few of the other runners from Porty who'd made it up there. Club vests really do make it much easier to find people. Several familiar faces from the usual Sunday runs, and a quick introduction to Jonny, who described himself as 'an infrequent vistor' to the club... which is what I've been too lately thanks to my workplace, but hey ho...
Bert and Jonny at the start
As usual, everyone discussing what times they have in mind. I'd been planning for ages - since I first planned out my training schedule - that I was going to use this race to aim to break 1.40 for a half-marathon for the first time. This is where I'd need to be if I was going to make the 3.31 I've committed to trying to get at London on 26th April (21 minutes faster than I've previously run for a marathon, in honour of the 21st birthday of the charity I'm running to raise money for). Having had nearly 2 weeks out with injury, preparation in recent weeks has been very much less than perfect. And since I started running again post-injury, I've been taking it pretty easy. But I decided during the week that I was going to go for the target I'd originally planned anyway. I needed to know if my ankle could handle me going for it a bit more and I really felt I needed to know what shape I was in and whether I needed to start re-setting everyone's expectations for the London marathon!
This and the rest of the photos below taken by Barry Davie.*
The sunshine of the past few days had all but disappeared and there was a grey sky and a cold wind blowing. As always happens, everyone went haring off at the start. I'd no intention of sticking with Bert and Paul as I knew they were aiming for sub 1.30, so I left them to it. Jonny and I were aiming for similar times so ran with him for first 2 or 3 miles. We both managed to catch sight of our families on the way out of Alloa and I even managed to wave to the camera as my wife snapped us running by. (So you might be wondering why there's no photo here... My wife was talking on the way home about what an excellent shot it was, swears she did take one, but we're both disappointed to find that it's not there on the camera now...)
Anyway, to get back to the race description; I was a bit nervous as we were running these first few miles at sub 7min pace, when I thought I should be averaging 7.30 pace to stick to my plan. Have learnt the hard way what can happen when you set off too quick so I decided to rein it in a bit... Jonny realised I was going to be a wuss about it, and forged ahead to let me get on with it! Thanks.
The first part of the race was 'gently undulating', a few ups and downs but nothing too ridiculous. It was when we came through Tillicoultry (at about 6 miles) to run for about 5 miles along the foot of the Ochil Hills that it became much tougher. This whole stretch was straight into the strong headwind and gently uphill - it was a real slog. And you can't really appreciate the views so much when you're battling hard and trying to make a target time.
Work that hill Lucy!
For about the first 8 miles of the race I still averaged nearer 7min/mile pace than 7.30, but I began to lose pace as the hill became steeper and that stretch just kept on going on and on into the wind! I began to slip to more like 7.45 pace, but knew I had a bit of slack because I'd been going quicker for the earlier part of the race. I'd been warned about a tough hill at about mile 10 or 11 as we turned off the long straight road alongside the Ochils, but, for me, it was such a relief to turn and not be fighting the headwind that I didn't find the steeper hill too bad.
The final mile or two was odd. By that point, I knew I was going to break 1.40, and the gradient was a bit flatter, although still undulating a bit. But it was feeling like hard work. It also didn't seem right that my ankle wasn't bothering me at all, and I started imagining that it maybe was starting to hurt a bit after all... but there's nothing wrong with my ankle now, so it was obviously just paranoia.
As we came back into Alloa and there were a few more spectators about I raised my game, and got great support from Adrian Stott of Edinburgh's Run and Become who was finishing about the same time as me, shouting 'Come on Porty!' as he drew level. It helped lift me for the final half-mile or so, and I forgot about my imaginary ankle pains and got back to 6.30/mile pace for the final stretch!
Alan ducking in behind Jimmy SavilleFinished in 1.37.04 and was obviously delighted with this (although immediately began thinking I could easily have dipped under 1.37 with a bit more effort...). More than 4 minutes off my previous PB for a half-marathon, and means I remain well on track to hit my target of 3.31 at London on 26th April.
Spoke to a few people after the race and seems to me either everyone was being cagey about their expectations before the race, or everyone had a reasonable run and did better than they thought they would. Bert and Paul both got well under 1.30, and Jonny got nearer to 1.35 than the 1.37 he said he was after at the start. Wonder if it'll be onwards and upwards at the Edinburgh half in a couple of weeks' time?
Report Sandy MacDonald
Results*Many thanks to Barry Davie who answered my call on the front page asking for photos. Barry was out on his bike capturing the event. Nice one, and much appreciated.
The top three images are from the official race site, the one below from roadrunpics last year.
Paul was aiming to go below 1.30 for the first time - undeterred by the wind he managed
1.28.08 (gun time) 1.27.53 (chip time) and that, a day after racing at Heriot Watt, - champion!
