2016 Southampton half marathon

Yesterday I ran the Southampton Half for the first time.  At last year's inaugural event I had been recovering from injury and ran the smaller 10k sibling event.  I don't tend to seek out big city races, but this has quickly become a prestigious local event, and frankly it would feel a bit rude not to take part.

We all trooped into Southampton as a family.  Parking was surprisingly easy, and we made our way up to the Civic Centre.  There was a riot of loud music, shouty announcements and swarming people, which was all a bit disorientating.  Within seconds, shouty man told runners to set off to the start line, so I stripped off the layers (it was a chilly, damp 7 degrees) made quick goodbyes and got into the a huge shuffling crush.

We had to wait almost half an hour at the start line, but the sun emerged and everything felt bright and the atmosphere was great.  The off down the high street, and I tried hard not to over-pace the start.  The first km was 3:38, a bit fast really, but this was all downhill.

All familiar territory for the first few minutes, retracing last year's 10k, and then the great switchback of the Itchen Bridge.  The return leg was a lot of fun, waving to friendly faces.  Then onwards, with a detour through St Mary's stadium and a long drag northwards into an insistent cold wind.

We were in Portswood when I heard people calling out to a Neil behind me.  I looked over my shoulder and saw Neil Jennings, the Romsey Runner.  Neil is always quicker than me at club sessions, and he overtook me as we headed up the long drag of Burgess Road towards the university.  I was running well but at 10 miles starting to feel a bit heavy.  Through Highfield and a big wave from the Allan family plus friends, and then into Southampton Common and the familiar parkrun course.  There was a distinct moment when I knew for sure that it was all downhill or flat from here on.

Running around the common, I could see that I was gaining on Neil.  I pressed home my advantage and overtook him as we emerged back onto the streets close to home.  I was terrified that he was going to catch me again so I sped on.  There seemed to be a huge gap between the 13 mile marker and the finish, and I was done for at the line.  Mrs S and the kids were there, laughing at my dreadful face as I sprinted to the line.

Here are the results, and here are the Garmin stats: I finished in 1:22:08, well ahead of my target of 1:25.  I was thrilled by the whole event - really well organised and supported, and a great blast around the city.

Romsey 2, London 1

A very interesting week of running.  Last Wednesday I took part in the OS team in the annual Civil Service 10k race, a familiar event, but this year hosted at the Olympic park in Stratford.

It was my first ever trip to the park (unless you count a tour of the site in all its contaminated awfulness, shortly after the Olympic award in 2005). I was impressed by all the attention to detail and in particular by the wild spaces in the river channel.  Here's the OS crew:

The course was a complex set of tight interlocking laps with two hard 180-degree turns and various sharp corners.   Four laps in theory, but in reality it was eight mini there-and-back laps, albeit with some good views and some interesting over-and-under bridge combinations.

I set off, despite my intentions, a bit too fast and before long found myself behind James Clarke, a sure sign that I was at risk of over-reaching myself.  I stayed with him till about halfway, at which point we were getting close to Rob Finch (who had beaten me in the Romsey 5 in January), but the two of them began to drift ahead.  I started to struggle with the whole multi-lap thing, and finished in 38:23, 5 seconds behind James and 18 behind Rob.  I then had a comedy rush to get showered, dressed up in a suit and get off to Westminster for a meeting.

On Sunday I ran two mini-races.  It was the Romsey Relay Marathon, an event that has been going for a while and growing in popularity.  10 legs of 2.6 miles, with each leg comprising 2 laps of 1.3 miles - an interesting format.  Both Romsey RR and OS Runners entered teams, but today I was running for OS. 

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking ten... about 70 teams went off together.  Within minutes, vast gaps opened up, with a clear group of 3 in the lead, including OS's Tony Killilea.  By the end of the second lap, the Romsey cricket club (cricket!) had opened up a 3 minute lead.

I ran legs 4 and 6, which in practice meant 15 minutes on, 15 off and then 15 on again.  15 minutes (7:30 per lap) was a bit of a stretch target, and in fact just out of reach.  For my first leg I ran 7:45 and 7:39; for my second I ran 7:46 and 7:32.  This wasn't my normal kind of race, but I loved it - I felt strong, and I was overtaking nicely.

Even better, the OS A team managed to climb from 3rd place to eventually win the whole thing by 9 minutes.  You might say that we smashed it.  What a great morning out and what a result.