2 hours 16 minutes and 33 seconds....... that was my official time in the Silverstone Half Marathon today, Birg did 2:15:59, she beat me by 34 seconds!!! Here I am, looking all relaxed before the start - Ha, Fool! Wait until I get a photo of me afterwards (I'm hoping I was snapped by an official photographer but won't know until Wedensday when they're published)
It was very hard work but I was pleased with the result. The best pace I'd managed prior to this was a 10 mile training run two weeks ago when I maintained a 10:27 minutes per mile pace for the 10 miles - and felt I was going to die when I'd finished (runners tend to talk about pace instead of speed, measuring their performance by how many minutes and seconds it takes to run a mile). When you take into consideration I actually ran 13.37 miles rather than the official 13.1 of a half marathon (due to going around obstacles - yes, I overtook some people, not many but some!!) I managed to keep to a pace of 10:14 per mile for a greater distance - I'm very pleased..... and shattered.
I wore my GPS and set it to beep at me when my pace went faster than 10:00/mile or slower than 10:30/mile, I'd have been happy with any result faster than an average of 10:30 but was trying to keep it as close as possible to 10:00. The route used all the different circuits that make up Silverstone (including the perimeter track) with the final 3 miles being back on the main F1 circuit. When we got back on the F1 track for the final time I was doing 10:12 and - thinking I'd be able to keep it going for the last 3 miles - dug in and sped up to try and get my pace down to 10:00 mins/mile, unfortunately I was wrong! After about a mile I felt terrible, it was only when my GPS said I had completed the official 13.1 miles that I got a second (third? fourth?) wind and went for it for the last quarter of a mile, I did stagger over the finish line though.
There were actually 4900 starters, 4809 finished, Birg came in at position 3,769 overall, 66 in her group of 122 * 45-49 year old women and I was 3,806 overall (122 out of 152 * 50-54 year old men). I can't wait to see the photos from the event but, as Birg takes great pleasure in reminding me, in a month's time I'll be doing it again - doubled....... hmmm.
If you follow this link it will show you the route we took along with various snippets of information such as my speed and heart rate etc. (if you're really interested!) but also, if you click on the 'Player' tab (top right) it plays back my run with a little dot representing me going round the circuit (well, once more, I think it's good fun!).
Here it is:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=5129000
For what it's worth, if you do click on 'Heart Rate' on the left side of the page the above link takes you to, you will see I was in zone 5 (90-100% of Max Heart Rate) for 43% of the time and zone 4 (80-89% HR Max) for a further 43% of the time, i.e. I was working blooming hard!!
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