On Sunday 11th June 2017, John and I took part in the St. Albans Half Marathon. Although this event has been around for 36 years, this was the first time I did it. Initially
I wasn’t planning to take part because after my disastrous Olympic Park Half Marathon 3 years old which was also held on a scotching hot day in June, I realised that June is too warm to run a long-distance event. 10k is fine is June but any distance longer than 10 miles would be too warm. Moreover, I didn’t really do much training after the Milton Keynes Marathon.
However, John said if it is too hot, we could just take it easy and treat it like a training run and not a race. I thought OK what a good idea to feel no pressure and relaxed and not to worry about my finishing time. So, my plan was just to finish and still feel comfortable.
When we arrived at the start at the beautiful Verulamium Park, the atmosphere was fantastic. It was more like a music festival than a typical running event. We saw thousands of people in all ages and many young children. There were 5 categories namely:
(1) Walking Half Marathon which started at 8:30am
(2) 5K fun run which started at 9am
(3) Wheelchair Half Marathon started at 9:40am
(4) Running Half Marathon started at 10am
(5) 1.5 miles junior fun run started at 10:20am
With over 6,000 participants (according to their official website: http://www.stalbanshalfmarathon.co.uk/Event_Info/Event_History.htm), no mean feat, it was a large-scale event. The organiser St Albans City Council created this festival atmosphere to get more people coming out moving, whether it’s through running, jogging, walking etc. I really felt a great sense of community spirit. This event has been crowned the biggest charity fundraising event in St. Albans and has won silver in prestigious UK Running Awards.
After a little aerobic dance warm up with some catchy pop music blasting at the back of the stage, we were led to our start pens. When John registered with this event, he mistakenly chose the estimated finishing time of sub 2 hours. I chose my estimated finishing time of over 2 hours. For this reason, John was allocated to the pen ahead of mine and he started a few minutes before me.
As soon as I started to run, I faced the first hill already. Then it was just constantly uphills and downhills throughout the race. The weather was warm but fortunately, there was a bit of wind which had made the warm temperature bearable. The locals were great. They played music in the streets and the spectators were great too. The first water station appeared just after mile 2 then there were water stations for every mile throughout with plenty of marshals and boy scouts and girl guides handing out water. I was doing OK in the first 5 to 6 miles and managed to keep sub 10 minutes a mile pace even when climbing up hills. Then my legs started feeling very heavy. During the uphill struggle, my split time dropped to over 13 minutes a mile although I made it up during downhills. When I made it to the finish line, my time was 2:11’55″. I was relieved that my legs which I hadn’t used for running for over a month got me round the same time as the Grand Union Canal Half Marathon I did back in April three weeks before my Milton Keynes Marathon. John finished in 2:33’33”. He’s a big guy and found the temperature too warm and the course too hilly. Having said that, we’ve both decided to go back next year !