Pewsey Half Marathon

Thursday 21st August
Interval session at the lake. Was aiming to do three laps, but only managed two in the end as I needed a "pit stop" after the second and was feeling tired after seven consecutive days of training. Steph joined me for this session as I had given her a lift from work to the gym and she didn't feel inclined to wait around for the running club either. I think she found it hard, which proves how good I am at pushing myself.

Really need to do this session more regularly.

Friday 22nd August
Complete rest. Full body massage with Ali in the evening. Ouch.

Saturday 23rd August
Body pump in the morning. No cardio. Went lighter with most of my weights on most of the tracks. Decided to give squats a go but with a much lighter weight to see how my knee held up.
Was about to do the same on lunges but was promptly reprimanded by Ali, reminding me I have a half marathon tomorrow. I know he is only trying to help, but I wasn't expecting to get a great time at Pewsey as it isn't really a PB course and with my recent trip to Germany I wasn't able to taper down for the race so would be running with tired legs anyway. Oh well. At least everyone who goes to body pump now knows I run half marathons.

Sunday 24th August
Pewsey Half Marathon, my third time at the event. Managed what was then a PB two years ago of 1 hour 51 mins and got roughly the same time last year. I knew I would have to settle for a similar time this year, and I was right.

The event had a lonely feel to it this year, in the last two years both Andy and my brother-in-law Richard have run with me but neither were able to attend this year. The only people there I knew, and said hello to, were Steve and Julie Goulding, the race organisers.

As usual, started at a good pace, knocking out the first five miles in just over forty minutes. But I was already starting to slow down, so I turned my watch off and tried to just run at a challenging but comfortable pace. Despite drinking plenty of water and in the week and no alcohol since I came back from Germany I felt quite dehydrated in the second half of the race. Fortunately there were four water stations in the race and while I just took a sip at the first two, I stopped and downed the whole cup at the last two.

Worryingly my dodgy hamstring felt a bit sore during the race as well, so I am going to have to be careful with it leading up to the Berlin marathon.

In the end was a bit disappointed not to get under 1 hour 50 minutes, but at least I had managed a better time than the last two years. On the day I think that was probably the best I could hope for. It was worth doing the race for the excellent race t-shirt with crop circles and aliens on the front and a claim that PVRC run the best races in Wiltshire on the back - well justified in my view. At just ten pounds to enter, I would expect local, friendly races to do better out of the credit crunch.

Thought briefly about going out for another training run later in the day but soon decided that was a stupid idea and my legs would be better served by me going home and putting my feet up, which I did.