On the morning of Sunday 24th November 2019, with a minimum temperature of 2°C, instead of starting my 2nd leg run in the annual Hereward Relay, I was 55 miles away from the Manor Leisure Centre in Whittlesey, I was on the start line of the Herefordshire Half Marathon. It was a bit of impromptu as a result of the Hereward Relay got cancelled (postponed to February 2020) due to flooding in some sections of the relay route. I only registered 5 days before the event and there were still spaces up for grab. After all, this event is very new only in its 3rd year plus it is quite a challenging and undulating course with lots of up and down slopes. It is not really beginners friendly. Since I had been training for the Hereward Relay and wouldn’t want my preparation to go wasted plus it is only 35-minute drive from my house. John decided to give it a miss as he found it quite tough last year when we did it together. So, here I came – along with other 2,000 runners. The carpark is just next to the start line so no need to use the baggage storage service. 20 minutes before the start, we did a 10-minute warm up which was extremely beneficial to raise our body temperature and heartbeat. We spent the first mile and a half running around the ground of the Knebworth House
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knebworth_House)
It means that Knebworth House (including the carpark) is bigger than the City of London as the City of London is only a square mile while the Knebworth House is one and a half square miles !!
After the Knebworth loop, we then ran through some beautiful views of Herefordshire countryside. The first few miles were either flat or down hill so I was pleased to maintain sub 10-minute mile pace but this didn’t last after mile 4 when we had to climb up a long stretch of slope. After a fairly decent start, once the route started to climb my pace took a bit of a dive and I couldn’t quite pick it back up again. I could only maintain 11-minute mile pace when climbing uphill.
To add salt to the wound, we saw runners coming towards our direction as they were approaching their mile 7. Basically, between mile 4 and 7, it was a dual carriage way. When I was struggling with the uphill, runners heading towards me were running downhill and they just looked so effortless. This applied vice versa when I was dashing downhill.
After mile 7, there were still more up and down hills. The last half mile was brutal. It was all uphill until a few yards before the finish line and that just hurt !! I couldn’t cross the finish line under 2 hours 15 minutes. I only managed in 2:15’08”. For full results, please visit:
http://results.racetimers.co.uk/results.aspx?CId=16487&RId=4417
A big thank you to all the lovely marshals at the water stations and along the route for braving the cold and making it a great race. I’ve done a fair few half marathons and this was, by far, one of the most well organised one. I would say it shares the same top spot with the Stroud Half Marathon.
Great parking (and free ♥), fantastic stalls (although I didn’t buy anything. This is only because they didn’t sell Vibram FiveFingers Trainers or toe socks), big and beautiful finisher’s medal ♥, very good quality technical finisher’s t-shirt with beautiful design and nice colour (light blue) ♥, amazing goodie bag with a bottle of ionised water, banana, baked crisps, power bar, flapjack (non-diary, vegan), peanut butter slurp♥. The biggest bonus of this event is all the official race photos are free of charge. The organiser published them on Facebook for free download – super like ♥♥♥
I really want to go back next year provided that it doesn’t clash with the Hereward Relay. To prepare for the Herefordshire Half Marathon, I really need to train more hill work and not to run on the treadmill. Treadmill is convenient as I have one at home. During the week, I usually just run on the treadmill in the early morning before going to work. I only run outside on Saturday or Sunday.
