1st Half Marathon My Results & Experience

14. Mar, 2011 1 Comment

Well as you know this was my 1st half marathon race and I had to travel quite far to get to Kent from Nottingham which was over 200 miles away. I did all the travelling on the Saturday and stayed over at a nice hotel about 10 miles away from Lydd. We managed to get a cheap room with a lovely see view.

Sunday was race day and I was quite nervous and still had my cold and a little cough, the race didn’t start until 10:15 am but was supposed to start at 10am. I wasn’t sure where to start, I ended up about 6 rows back and then the race went off with 3, 2, 1, go!

Start Of The Half Marathon Really Fast Pace

Wow! I knew that most runners would go off quick but I wasn’t expecting them that quick. I guess all the reading I’ve done online didn’t really do anything and I went off at a quick pace as well. I should have stuck to my pace and slowed right down but I guess with all the excitement of my first half marathon I just went with it.

I finished my 1st mile at 7:01 and kept running quite quick I felt quite relaxed running at that pace so was hoping I could sustain it. I ran the 1st 6 miles in around 44 minutes. I then decided to take an energy gel and after that I didn’t feel that good but according to Garmin I actually ran mile 6 at 7:33 which was faster than the previous lap. Every mile after that just kept getting slower and slower.

I also found that as I was running and a runner would overtake me I tried to stay with them and usually managed around 30 seconds but then slowed down again and I did this for quite a bit of the race.

I also found it quite tough through miles 6-9 I think this was mainly because I was running through country roads and there were probably only a dozen supporters cheering us on so It was quite empty so didn’t really have much to look at.

The last mile I was so happy I looked down at my Garmin 305 and see it said 12:3 so I decided to step up the pace and I managed to overtake 6 runners but then about 100 yards later I had to slow down and those runners overtook me again.

This was a massive experience and one that I’m so glad to have done. I have also learned that I need to keep my own pace and not to worry about any other runners as they have probably been running much longer than I have. I have only been running 2 ½ months.

I now have my 1st official half marathon time so I can look to beat it in the future. I also finished 153 out of 456 runners. So I’m quite happy with that.