Glasgow Half Marathon 2009

So I'm back at the place where it all started a year ago. Weather looked OK early on with overcast but no wind. Glasgow was as you can imagine heaving with people and a lot of pre race tension was written on the faces.

I felt pretty good with no injury or illness worries. Team Kennedy manager and I met up with old friends and we kept up a good rate of nervous chatter with a good exchange of medicines, lotions and potions going on pre race topped with frequent visits to the toilets.

The start is staggered so they pulse people through the start in groups based on your original estimated finish time. I can't remember what I'd put on the application but I was in the white section which was third group to go after the wheelchair athletes and the elites. I took my position right at the very back.

The start was delayed a little but eventually the wheelchair athletes started then the elites went off. The cattle fodder followed on like wee sheep, although the ones at the front set off at what looked to me like a full on sprint.

I go through the start line without too much bother and up and away. After the first km or so you climb and then drop down onto the ramp to the Kingston Bridge that crosses the Clyde at the west end of Glasgow city centre. The road narrows a bit here and it became obvious lots of people were in the wrong group or were starting very very slowly.

I spent most of the time on the bridge threading through folks and even passed a guy who had stopped for a rest after about 3km. This was a forced slow down my usual quick first few km's. So it may not have been a bad thing. At the 5km mark I was at 24 minutes which is a good pace but not overly quick for the first 5km for me.

The rain was now on pretty constant and you needed to keep up a pace to keep comfortable. I passed the first water stop but my race plan was take nothing on during the race at all. I'd found previously at Alloa that eating or drinking broke my concentration and during my training as the runs got longer I needed less and less for anything under two hours of effort. The weather conditions being very cool also reduced any need for fluids.

I found the course to be less hilly than I remembered and the climb into Pollock park and 10K mark at (48 minutes)went past without any problem. As I left Pollock Park my race plan was to lift my pace for from that point for the last 8K. I was however finding it hard to keep my pace never mind lift it. I was 1:12 at the 15K mark so knew that 5 minute km's would get me under the 1:45 which was my target. So that gave me a boost as I knew that every minute that my pace was kept faster than 5mins per km that I was skimming time off. In the last few km's any slight incline was killing my legs and keeping the pace better than 5min/km was getting progressively more difficult(as you can see from the photo). I had a speed alarm on my watch so I was getting pinged when my pace went slower than 5min/km or faster than 4:15/km. My split times were all pretty even so that approach worked. I think the secret is setting the pace at a reasonable and achieveable level.

The route was slightly different this year and I got surprised by my proximity to the finish. As I rounded the last corner a guy behind me said come on then lets finish this and we both broke for the line. It was still a good 300m to go so a fair distance. I went over with the clock showing 1:42:30 and I knew I was well in as I'd only went over the start line around the 2 minute mark. My watch was saying 1:40:20 so I was a bit gutted not to dip my toes into the 1:30's, although it would be a little cheekily. Official time was 1:40:48 so a little out from my personal timing.

Team Kennedy Manager finished in 2:00:33 in a run that was hindered by the knee problem she
picked up two weeks ago. A good time for a first ever competitive race and a great effort in taking on a half marathon as her first race. I think she'll be back next year.

Hat tip to Dougie for pulling off a fantastic 1:41:57 after only a few weeks training(don't you just hate people like that :O) )and Chico who finished in 2:00:58 in a race that he said he had to fight for every mile.

We headed off for a big pasta lunch and some well deserved Peroni's...

As a dessert I've been offered a place at the Great North run in two weeks, so I'm pretty excited about that given the scale of the event and its a great incentive to keep up the training for another few weeks.