Mad dogs... Hampshire Hoppit 2017

A heatwave developed over the course of last week, and Sunday's Hampshre Hoppit half marathon was clearly going to be an interesting challenge.  Mrs S had found this race and enthusiastically signed us both up, only to come down with a cold last Thursday.  Reluctantly, she was persuaded that running her first half marathon in broiling weather while feeling ill wasn't such a good idea.

So it was just me who set off to Kingsclere. Arriving in the car park, I saw the marathon runners taking the long slog up Watership Down.

There was a super atmosphere at the start.  I managed to wangle some suncream, trotted around a bit (warming up seemed a bit superfluous) and off we went.  After a couple of km we went up the scarp slope, which got the lungs properly started.  Here are a couple of others' photos that I found.. this really was a glorious hill.

That done, I tried very hard to maintain a sensible pace.  The graph below shows some of the story... reasonably consistent from the top of That Hill into the valley, and beginning to wobble in the later stages on the climb back uphill.

Make no mistake; this was a monstrously hot day.  We were out in the midday sun (the earlier hazy clouds gave way) and at around 29 degrees the heat dominated.  I was immensely glad for my hydration backpack, and I was drinking constantly.

A couple of guys over took me in the early sections, one of them I took back, I caught a few others... but for much of the time I was alone.  The course, the views and the marshal support was all tremendous.  Heading back uphill, I thankful for the portions of shade and endured the full sun.

And then I was back at the top of the chalk hill and hurtling down in a sideways zigzag.  Last mile to go; back on a familiar footpath countouring the base of the slope and finally the last km downhill to the finish.

I caned it.  Let's qualify that... I opened every throttle and blasted myself forwards, but the finish never seemed to get any closer.  It was unbearable.  I staggered over the line and collapsed on the ground, a heaving mess.  I got up again and looked around desperately for a patch of shade.  I found a small strip of shade next to a camper van and lay on my back, boiling over.  Five minutes later I was feeling OK and realised there was a marquee just by the finish line.  I said hello to Matt P, and managed to leave my water pack behind on my way out.

My time was 1:37 and I was 7th place - I was quite happy with that.  Here are the GPS stats.

What a fabulous race and what an experience.  This is certainly a race to come back to!