On Sunday 9th June, John and I went to St Albans Verulamium Park for the St Albans Half Marathon. This event offers a great range of categories such as Half Marathon running, Half Marathon walking, 5k and 3k fun run. The previous 2 years had been extremely hot, and John decided that he didn’t want to run another St Albans Half Marathon in scorching heat. So, John had entered the Half Marathon walking in which he could start as early as 8:30am whereas I had to wait for an hour and a half until 10am to start my Half Marathon running.
When we arrived, the sun was already shinning from the lovely clear blue sky – well, lovely for everybody else apart from the runners. John started his walk at bang-on 8:30. After sending John off, I was just hanging around for an hour and a half to wait for my start.
The organiser provided a fitness trainer to do pre-race warm up exercise with the runners. After 10 minutes of warming up, I was already sweaty.
Before the race, I was hoping to finish in 2 hours 11 minutes (i.e.: 10-minute mile for 13.1 miles). Looking at the sun, I kind of downgrading to 2 hours 15 minutes target. I positioned myself between the 2 hours 10 minutes and 2 hours 15 minutes pacers. The pacers were carrying a big bright orange flag with the finishing time printed in big and bold font so it was very easy to spot them. By 10am when the Half Marathon running event started, it was already warm, and it felt like it would only grow warmer as we drew closer to late morning / mid-day.
The route is very undulating with a variety of up and down hills. It doesn’t really allow for a rhythm to develop a pace. I am rubbish in uphill, so I would usually make it up when descending. I set my GPS watch alert threshold from the fastest pace of 9 and half minutes to the slowest pace of 11 minutes a mile. My watch was beeping as expected when I was ascending but it was still beeping even when I was on the descent. Why oh why? Something wrong with me. How come my stride was over 11 minutes a mile when I was descending?? I realised my legs were lack of power. I glanced my watch and noticed my pace was 11’02” which was outside my slowest pace threshold. It looked like a sub 2 hours 10 minutes was definitely unlikely, and I had also lost sight of the 2 hours 10 minutes pacer. While the 2 hours 15 minutes pacer was still behind me, though 2 hours 15 minutes finishing time was still possible. My Plan B was to not be letting the 2 hours 15 minutes pacer overtake me.
Whether it was the added stress of the scorching heat or my lack of fitness, or both, I just felt terrible. There were plenty of water stations (every 1 and half miles) and I grabbed the bottle of water and didn’t discard the bottle until I had finished the whole bottle. With a total of 8 water stations, I think I had consumed more or less 3 litres of water throughout the race. I had 4 SIS isotonic gels, but the sugar rush didn’t seem to help me push to a faster pace. I saw some other runners converting to walking pace. I think they had also suffered from the heat. By mile 9, I started seeing the Half Marathon walkers. They looked so chilled and they were gazing around the beautiful countryside of St Albans. They could even walk, chat, drink, eat at the same time. At this point, I really envied them. I was quite tempted to join them to switch to walking mode.
By mile 11 and a half, I finally caught up with John. John looked so relaxed and he even wound me up that he was enjoying his walk very much. I said to John I felt terrible. He then started filming me running. When he played back the clip to me after the event, I could see I looked awful and my running style was all over the place. I was running like Quasimodo – the bell ringer in the movie “The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
Shortly after mile 12, I was even overtaken by the 2 hours 15 minutes pacer. I had now lost both my Plan-A and Plan-B. I didn’t have a Plan-C. My only objective was to make it to the finish in one piece. I pushed whatever I could to stick to the pacer and not to let him out of my sight. When I finally crossed the finish line, my Garmin recorded 2:16’01”. I later checked my official chip time and it was 2:16’00”. I felt incredibly exhausted upon finishing and I had to sit down on the grass to recompose myself while waiting for John to cross the finish line. John finished his Half Marathon walk in 3 hours 55 minutes.
As ever, would I go back again next year? I really don’t know. The weather was hot, but the organisation of this event is superb with plenty of water stations and marshals. The ice lolly was a godsend after such a scorching half marathon.
