WAMC Darlington Half Marathon

Thursday -  I ran with Clown.  16.2km - I wouldn't say it was easy,easy but felt pretty good even though we were going at 4.20/km pace according to Clown’s Garmin for part of it.

Overall pace is a bit of a guess because I can’t remember what time I got home.

This is what Clown’s Garmin said for the bit we were running together:

Pace for 10k, averaged 4.21

4:22,4:27,4:18,4:18,4:20,4:30,4:20,4:24,4:13,4:23

Friday and Saturday - I just did 8.6km recovery runs.  Slightly quicker than normal but still very easy in anticipation of a hard run on Sunday.

Today (Sunday) Stuck to the plan with this one and glad that I did. The course was changed from last year and made it a bit slower with the addition of a loop in the first 4km that added a big downhill and then an uphill pretty much where you didn’t want them.
Although it was overcast at the start, the sun was soon out and it warmed up considerably.

Ran a steady comfortably hard pace on the way up but with the change to the course, we didn’t really hit the downhill until the 14km mark. On the way back, I got into a group of three and there were lots of little surges by the other two as I maintained a good tempo pace.

Took a gel at about 13km, Strawberry Banana. Didn’t go down to well and seemed to re-initiate some stomach issues I had earlier in the morning. It stopped me really going hard until about 18km.

With about a km to go, our group was down to 2 and we picked off a young bloke who had been in about 8th just after the turnaround but who had died on the way back. He fought back briefly but was gone and I then caught another runner who had been about 100-150m in front of us for most of the last 10km.

Gary Carlton was a marshall and he called out some support and said “300m to go”. I went hard past the guy I had just caught, he kicked back and with about 150m to go we were both flogging it, neck and neck.

A left hand turn and he was on my inside, I accidentally bumped him with my elbow, I apologised but I lost momentum a bit and was gone. We had dragged off the others behind us though so I slowed to the finish in 1.27.53.

I did 1.24 here last year but raced it flat out on a better day and in better shape. I could have gone a bit harder on the way out but I think I paced it reasonably well.

These are the splits I got:

3km- 12:33
5km- 21:11
6km- 25:10 (3.59)
7km- 29:35 (4:24)
8km- 33:52 (4:17)
10km- 42:49
11km- 47:00 (4:11)
12km- 51:19 (4:19)
13km- 55:27 (4:08)
14km- 59:50 (4:22)
15km- 1:03:42 (3:51)
16km- 1:07:38 (3:55)
18km- 1:15:51
21.1km- 1:27:53

Did a 2km warmdown with Clown(1:30) and Epi (1:26).  The up and downhills were not good for Clown's adducter which has been giving him problems.  Still an excellent training run which will have huge benefits for Boston.  Epi had a great run - I reckon this puts him back in the running for sub3 at Boston.  I could see him up ahead for a lot of the way out - he motors up those hills.  Well done guys!

I’m happy with this a hard training effort. I’m not in half marathon PB shape though and 2mins was probably as much as I had up my sleeve here.

Heard the winner mention to someone that his Garmin had the course 300m long. Hope that wasn’t the case.

Clown has the route with elvations on his Strands page

http://www.strands.com/clown