Coventry Half Marathon- Hometown Half’s HAVE to get PB’s

What. A. Day. 

Leading up to the event on the Saturday, I got a phone call off my Mum saying Freya was violently throwing up. She gained the dreaded norovirus for 4 days. It was horrific. On the Sunday, I had caught it. Although not sick, it came out the other end and the neasea was exceedingly unpleasant. I felt drained and we slept an aweful lot. 

At this point, I was ready for a DNS on Sunday. Come Wednesday, it was time to go back to Tamworth after not going to work for my two nights on. First time in half a year I’ve had a sick day. Jake, Jakes Mom, his Dad, his sister all came down with the same thing and Jake was still bad when I got home. I was really fortunate. I don’t know whether it was my immune system, but I somehow gained lesser more kinder symptoms and didn’t get it half as bad. Thank God, did he know? 

I messaged my running coach. Well, a local gent who I purchased a 10 week plan for the remainder of the my marathon training as to what I should do. We agreed for a steady 3 miler of Friday to determine how I felt on that. 

So I went out and my God, I felt fresh as hell. I was like a horse thats been on box rest for a week and finally allowed to go out to the field. I was elated after that 3 miles and most definitely felt ready for Coventry. 

The night of. I stayed at my Dads so we could walk to the start. We had a 8:30am start. I was up for 6am. That is probably the earliest I’ve ever started a race. 

It was busy with runners everywhere. The new area   was by uni, and my stomach cramps told me to line up for the port a loo’s. 

After that, I was doubly ready to start. We walked to the back of the que as the tannoy guy was telling us to get into our desired finish time pens. My Dad goes, “2:15 you can do that surely” by this time he was already lifting me over the barriers and putting a heafty weight on my shoulders to start a little quicker than I was planning. I wanted to follow a 2:20 pacer. 

The start does the same kind of loop. Onto Little Park street, around the city centre and then onto Radford road which takes off the first mile. I was not impressed, it was very congested and prohibited me to gain an even pace having being stuck behind everyone. Maybe it does pay to be a little in over your head in the start pens so you can gain momentum more. I don’t know. Might test it next year. 

First mile 9:47, I don’t know how I was producing that as my watch kept beeping at me saying that my pace was ‘slow’ at 11:30/mile at regular intervals. I felt the bounce in my pace return. It was lovely to feel that. Since marathon training I’ve felt sluggish. 

Mile 2: Instead of going up Lawrence Sanders Road, we headed further up the Radford road turning left onto Mosely Avenue. This was literally a 2 minute run from my house. Gutted my Mum couldn’t just pop down the road to see me. She probably would have if I’d asked her to to be honest. But I didn’t study the new route properly. 

Mile 2 (10:22) mile 3 (9:55) My regular work commute route. I was laughing at myself. In a few hours following this, I was due in work for 4, I’d be cycling this same road. It was all down hill. On the left turn onto Holyhead Road I looked out for my bestie Lizzy, who was initially spectating to see her Dad, good ol’ Kev. May I add, he’s in his 60’s and gained a sub 1:40 half for Coventry. Well done Kevlar. After a quick hug and a kiss I was back off running up the Holyhead road. The first gradual incline of the day. 

My 5K time must have been just below 31 minutes, which was quite fast considering in training it’s been around 32, a stalemate for having to do longer miles and pacing myself adequately. 

Mile 4 (10:08) it was at this point I was running past a woman in a pink vest and under my headphones I herd a “hello, you”. It was only Faye Clark from the stables where we kept Guinny at Hollyfast. Her horse, Archie lived next to Guinny in the barn. So at one time I saw Faye quite a lot. She was running for a fantastic cause. Little Rosie Abbott, who lost her battle in 2016 of cancer. I knew her from the yard also. A little ray of sunshine and rainbow now in the sky. We had a little chat and wished each other good luck and I went ahead. Faye did a great time of 2:27 and also gained a cold before race day, so this was an amazing effort. 

Mile 5 (10:08) onto Washbrook Lane. So many memories of hacking the horses around here. They were there to replay in my mind and pass this mile. 

Mile 6 (10:31) onto Bridlebrook Lane. Another little incline. I went up thinking I was one of the horses. But here I was refined to a walk. At the tuning onto Wall Hill Road. I was met by the Northbrook Stand. Which is now my second claim club. How I’d love to train with them again. But it’s just too difficult to get child care on their training days. 

Mile 6, culmulative time was 1:00:06 which meant my 10k time was pretty much a new PB for me. 

Mile 7 (10:33) Going up to mile 8, I was greeted by far the best water station. The Hollyfast Meadow’s lot. I don’t think they realised who I was at first, but as I ran past I herd the yard owner shout “GOOOO NICOLE” at the top of her lungs. That was lovely to hear. They eventually realised who I was. Thank God. I wasn’t just this passer by shouting “Faye will be with you shortly. I’ve seen her!” 

Mile 8 (11:01) my worst split of the day. Once I peaked from Hollyfast Lane, I knew it was all downhill from here. Many a times I’ve ran the Tamworth Road segment the opposite way. So I am an expert. I put the time predictor on my watch and it was fluctuating between 2:16/17 finish time. So here I tried to keep consistent, make the most of the decline. 

Mile 9 (10:03). It must have worked with redeeming my 11 min mile on the last. Coming down by my old secondary school, I was flagging. From here I had a few walk for a couple of seconds. Up Waste lane, which was put in to take out the out and back of Long Lane was so much better, in my opinion. 

Mile 10 (10:40) the walking was impeding my good splits. We were back in Coundon. Definitely on our way back to the town centre. 

Mile 11 (10:29) Man I was in pain. But I knew it was my legs giving out not my mind. I just tried to forget the fatigue and just keep ruuuuning. 

Mile 12 the last hill, the last hill!!!!!! (10:15) I was so close, yet so far! The hill by the TA centre and Barr’s Hill, school,  I had to walked for 30 seconds again. Then gave myself a pep talk. Like come onnnnnnn. You’ve nearly gained glory gooo. The decent down the to the city centre felt like I flew down it. My Duracell bunny had kicked into action. 

 

Great support from the Salvation Army by the way. 

Mile 13 (9:59) we got round to Pool Meadow to take a right up towards the cathedral finish, which is a little incline. I ran my heart out to the finish!! 

What an amazing run, consistency with pace was on point, and I get pretty damn amazing seen as though I had an illness. I finished strong in 2:15:28 the first time in while that my watch corresponded the correct time as the official online results. 

I really, really enjoyed the new route, the support was fantastic. I guess I’ll be back next year all being well! 

Anglesey Half Marathon 2019- “Oo Look... It’s Raining” Typical Welsh Weather

Yeeey, so the day finally came to my first half marathon of the year. 

This was suppose to be in Warwick. But we wanted to see our family in Wales, and luckily this half was the same day as Warwick. After looking online the 10k had already sold out. But the half was still available. All that was left to do was to try and sell my Warwick half place. I did so successfully! 

I was so chuffed with my immune system. I avoided all colds and flu viruses for a whole month and a half. Only gaining a mere crappy bug (literally) for 2 days. 

Then... dun, dun, durrr. I gained a ridiculous cold on Friday the 15th. I was so glad I’d gotten my 18 miler done the day before with no issues. After this, of course I got a sinus infection! Luckily, I took antibiotics for 5 days and it went. But then, I developed bronchitis with a bad chest. Well they say things come in threes right. So I’d been out of running for 2 weeks. I attempted a 3 miler the Tuesday before race day, it went terribly. I just gave up in the end due to a really painful stitch. I tried my normal method of exhailing and striking the foot down on the opposite side, but it was to no avail. Hopeless. I switched my watch off and dragged my bottom lip all the way home, defeated. 

Here we go again I thought. One tremendous step back. AGAIN! My motivation was faltering so I invested what little money I had left for the month on a local running coach to put together my last 9 week training plan in the lead up to Belfast. He gave me this on Friday night. Which ignited a little motivation. 

My chest got better, I wasn’t coughing much. Only having coughing fits at night. Which was good news to my ears. On Wednesday morning, I opted not to go all out on leg day and do some simple glute exercise instead. Then the next day I realised I’d aggravated my bloody piriformis on the right hand side. Just under my butt cheek, I was being weird and constantly grabbing it in pain. Christ. This wasn’t going well at all! 

As with many times in the past, I just rested for the remainder of the week, not to mention stupidly putting Deep Heat on my lower bum after I had a shower then walking round trying to sit on something cold because my left cheek was on fire. After googling why that might be. I came to the conclusion that a hot shower had opened my pours, and thus the Deep Heat got absorbed a little too much and had 10x the ‘heat’ effect. To my surprise this didn’t even work :-( 

I gave myself till Saturday night to decide as to whether it would be worth further aggravating and causing more injury time off running, just for a half marathon. I had to think of the bigger picture. 

Saturday morning we set off for Anglesey. The pain was gone, so I just said. Slow. Which would be inevitable due to no proper training in 2 weeks. 

Sunday came along and also a potential ‘Storm Freya’ (LOOOL). The irony. Luckily we were to avoid the harsh winds. But gained the rain. Not in full force, thankfully. To be honest, it was quite relaxing when running in it. 

We arrived over Menai Bridge to the start with 30 minutes to spare. It just so happened that I had not been to the loo before I came, so I quickly lept into the first queue I saw. It was massive and people were taking their sweet merry time. The race start was 9am sharp. Tick tock peoples... 20 too, 10 too... the announcer reminding us every minute over the tannoy how long we had left and to start lining up.  the men who wanted a wee, had urinals so you could guarantee the men left waiting for the port-a-loo’s needed a big shit! Aha. 

59 minutes past 8. For goodness sake. I was still third in line! But I knew I had to go, it was a long way to wait until 9 miles in. It would haunt me, I knew it would. I finally got out and then my Dad goes, “stay with Freya, I’m going to use the urinals”... 

DAAAAAD. IVE GOTTA GO!!! 

He took his sweet merry time also. So I literally ran and nearly took out 5 kids who were due to run the Dragon Dash. I love kids. Like I have a baby. But seriously. Moveeeeee I paid a lot more to start this race. 4 minutes past 9, I eventually crossed the starting mat and was one my way. What a anticlimactic start all the other runners were gone out of sight... All the spectators were on the bridge just strolling back over. I was dodging people left, right and centre. Then I came the roundabout by the Anglesey Arms, with no runners  in front of me. I grabbed a Marshall and he told me where to go. I felt lonely. This was not the same as back in 2017. Definitely makes a difference when you start with everybody on TIMEEE. 

Mile 1 - 10:11. Set off too fast. Causing a stitch. But I did reach the back of the pack! Yeeey running humans. I have arrived! 

Mile 2 - 10:43. Here I thought I wanted to sustain 10:40ish or under 11 min miles for as long as I could. 

5k- 10:35. Around a 32 mins. Still had a stitch, and I was pinching it and relseasing it to try get it to fuck off, as it was seriously doing my swede in now. 

Mile 4 - 10:42. Onto the Menai Strait on Beaumaris Road. 

Mile 5- 10:37. I was met by the winning male running back, for him it would be about mile 9. Man, he was fast 💨. The sheer look of concentration filled his face. Amazing. I’m pretty sure he won it too. Gosh I love Jake, but what I’d give for him to be into running. He’s really lanky and has the typical somatotype of a runner. But he smokes, and has a few health problems. I shall succeed in getting him to run an event with me yet. There’s still time. Taking into account many runners don’t start till their 30’s, he’s 27 this year! It’s my life goal 😂. Not getting married to him- making him run with me. 

10k - I have no clue what my 10k time was. I can only assume it was around 1:06. My 6th mile came in at 10:50. After this, I remembered the route very clearly. The first significant incline of the race. Ffordd Eglwys it’s sharp going from 15ft to 140ft. I felt it. 

Mile 7- 12:04. Worst split of the day. That shows just how difficult the incline was. 

Mile 8- 10:18. This mile always seems to be the make or break of me in a half. My flagging point my petrol reserve was flashing. At this point it was fairly windy. I couldn’t really feel my hands and I just wanted it to be over. My knees were feeling the brutal force of each footstrike, and my lower back on the right and left of my spine started to give a dull ache! I felt like an old woman with dodgy hips and knees. Plus, I’d forgotten to pack my Runner’s knee straps which really do make a difference for me. 

Mile 9- 10:56. A run out onto to costal path along the sea/ lake of Beaumaris. Then back onto the high street. 

Mile 10- 11:09. The hill of death. 38ft to 110ft. I had to walk. This was probably the most I’d walked since inbetween mile 6 and 7. Stopping to walk for a whole minute. Then I decided. Feck it. No headphones my asshole. I plugged that shit in and blasted my music. It most definitely got me through the last 3 miles. 

Mile 11- 11:48. A pretty bland mile. Back onto the main road, back to the finish. It’s great. But the walls get in the way out the wonderful water view. 

Mile 12- 11:27. Happy, happy, happy mile. I knew I was kind of in time for a post pregnancy PB. I upped to 9 mile miles for a little, feeling a little refreshed! 

Mile 13- 10:25. Yeahhaaaaaaaaaa. I’m so close to finishing my first half for the year. Gooo, gooo, goooo. Luckily the last 0.10 was practically downhill and I sprinted to the finish. Well I only got up to 9:47. That’s all I had left in the tank! 

My watch read 2:22:58. Due to starting late. My official time through text message was 2:27. Am I hell going with that one! Completely inaacurate. 

I got my post pregnancy PB by 20 seconds off the Brum Half back in October. 

I’ll just add this on the end. My Dad rang me at the end to tell me where to meet him. Did I feck know where I was going. A journey which should of took me 10 mins went extended to 40. By that time I truly knew what cold meant. I had a cold sweat and the rain had started to pick up. I actually was getting so stressed out on the phone to my Dad. Like ffs. I’m freezing, getting pneumonia here come and find me NOWWWW!! 😂. 

Another great event put on by the Always Aim High event crew. They’ve recently launched a new 10k and half in Anglesey at Newborough Forrest in June. So I’ll see what my fitness is and try and do that one for a change of scenery. But for now. Roll on the Coventry Half at the end of March! I cannot wait. Fingers crossed I don’t accept rain anymore niggles or germs.