A half marathon, it’s like a marathon but half as long
In December I decided the Exeter City Community Half Marathon would be a fun thing to do. A few Coasters were going and I thought maybe it would be nice to race far enough from the Marathon and get an idea of where I am. In the end after my time off running with illness I decided to use it as a gentle tester of where I was rather than racing it. I wanted to see how my target marathon pace would feel. I’m not sure it’s the target for this marathon but I remember aiming for 20 minute 5k’s (and hitting the majority of them) at Lake Toya Marathon, Japan. That felt like such a great run. I felt brilliant until around 21 miles (33k) where things started to unravel. That was 2016, this was 2026. Marathon’s are amazing because I still remember that day very well. I needed my Dad on a bicycle with a squeaky horn to make me laugh and push to 2.59.35 - my first sub 3 (I think the clock actually read 2.59.59).
Lake Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan - Splits 2016
I’ve just ran my first sub 3 - Oooof
Recently ran 20 mins at Park Run and it had been comfortable to talk to the 20 minute pacer so I figured, let’s give this a go and find out how much that Cat Scratch damaged you. It was a nice low pressure test. If I couldn’t run a half at that speed after a month off and a little rebuild it wasn’t the end of the world. If I could then it would give me confidence.
The day of Exeter City Half came around and the weather didn’t seem to bad. I got a lift over with Kirsten and Graeme, a nice warm up and things felt good. I’d perhaps had too much coffee but other than that hardly a foot wrong. The race began and it was difficult not to get sucked into racing. Especially when the podium places weren’t miles off however I knew that would be silly today. It was nice to just try and find a comfortable speed and keep at it. The race was made better by constantly seeing Coasters out on the course. At one point I thought Tom Jacobs was going to catch me! Another time I thought Freya might. But I had to stick to the plan, I blog about this sort of thing now…
The plan worked;
First 5k — comfortable.
Second — still good.
Third — okay, Mr Baker, you might have to dig in a bit here mate.
Fourth — dig we did. Cadence up. Stay relaxed
I finished a happy man, jumped on the massage table and then enjoyed watching the Coasters come home. I was then very impressed by the other Jacobs, Vicky who had ran her first ever half and together with husband Tom raised over £1200 for charity!
This week has been a recovery week. I like recovery weeks. You can’t smash training from now until marathon day. I used to try. The longer I’ve been running, the more I’ve realised that sometimes it’s harder to be sensible than to push.
You have to trust the process. Trust your body to adapt. You can’t hammer it into the sculpture you want it to be. Sculpting takes years, not one heroic week. And if you want to keep shaping it, you have to know when to step back.
The half was a marker. The marathon will be different. It always is.
Now it’s time to get back to work, the training miles won’t run themselves.
I won’t have my Dad on a bike cheering me on at Manchester and I am 10 years older. But for what I lack in youth, I feel I’ve have more Willpower than ever before!
Hero on a hire bike, Will Baker
