Worcester half marathon, 2025

This was my fourth attempt to get through the EA Masters qualifier, and my first road half since Tatton nearly two years ago. Training had gone well; I'd spent the summer upping my distances and thoroughly benefiting from Lordshill coaching and endurance sessions. The journey had been as it should be; hard, satisfying and enjoyable. The knee niggle that had developed at the start of the week had gone, and I was feeling good.

     
Worcester is cool and quirky

Sue and I had spent the day before exploring Worcester, so I had a reasonable familiarity with its geography. The start line felt relaxed and friendly. I had an enjoyable chat with the only other M55-er I could find, a geordie called David who said he was hoping for 1:20. Yikes, that's probably out of reach.

Steady steady for the off. I felt light as air and struggled to hold the pace for the first km back to 3:50. We crossed the river, swept around the university campus, and then back again to the east side and around the race course. It was calm and peaceful out there and I tried to concentrate on maintaining good form.

Passing the halfway market, the race changed. We were into the city centre, taking multiple twists and turns, with plenty of two-way stretches (an opportunity to admire the pace of the vanguard) and loads of crowd support and music playing. It was great fun, but over this section the largely flat course was punctuated with plenty of little inclines which were testing. As I started to feel fatigued I offered up some gratitude for the sheer privilege and joy of doing one of the things I love best, and there was Sue shouting and waving.

On to the river promenade, and I was focused on the bridge in the distance, forgetting that there was a complicated bit of chicanery around the docks first. I was feeling fatigued now (for me, it's about enduring the difficult teenage kms) but I was palpably catching people and I felt in control. Cross the river, 2km to go, and I'm passing more runners, some of them audibly on their uppers. Then the final bridge and the approach to the finish, which is all a bit of a blur.

My chip time was 1:23:15. I felt the race had gone as well as I could have hoped for and that was absolutely enough. Here are my stats. Had I got the top 3 M55 position that I needed? It took a while to figure this out, The answer was no, not this time I was fifth, well behind David who had got his fifth and nearly eight minutes behind first and second, who had knocked insane 75-minute times.

Chasing the elusive England shirt is a terrific adventure. The quest continues. I'll get there.