The Silverstone Half Marathon Race Report

So, Sunday was my first ever half marathon, and what a location! Being a Formula 1 fan, having the opportunity to race around a Formula 1 track, albeit on foot, was always going to appeal. So instead of picking a more sensible nearby half-marathon to try, I went for this one instead.

Welcome to Silverstone

Note: All photos (except for ones on the track without me in) were taken by Steve and post-processed by me. You can click on any photo/image to see a much bigger and clearer version.

We stayed in a hotel nearby the night before so as to avoid the long drive up to Silverstone before the race. This turned out to be a good move, especially as there were queues to get into the car parks.

When I got out the car the first thing I noticed was that it was blowing a gale, and it was bloody freezing. Oh great. I got myself ready then posed for my obligatory pre-race photograph:

Before the race

My plan for this race was to hopefully finish in under 2hr30mins – I’d managed 13.1 miles before in 2hr28 minutes the first time I did it, but the second time it was more like 2hr34. Given I’d not been out for a while and my knees were playing up and my foot was sore, I wasn’t holding my breath I’d break that time. In fact I was fully expecting to have to walk in places.

Before long, it was time to head for the start. I headed for the back of the pack, knowing I wasn’t going to be on top form (no running over the previous two weeks) and given the type of race it was, I’d be unlikely to be overtaking many people if I started near the front and it is always demoralising to have people stream past you.

Waiting on the start line

As you can see, the race started (and finished) in the location of the Formula 1 start/finish line. It was very odd to be lining up on car markings like I’ve seen on TV.. they were a lot smaller than I imagined, and I’ve seen F1 cars for real as well – makes it all the more impressive what they do.

Rather worryingly, I spotted a bunch of dudes with guns also at the back.. one way to make sure you keep going I guess!

Dudes with guns

After a few minutes, during which time I updated my Twitter feed (take a look for the updates!), we were off. It took over 5 minutes for me to reach the start line, I was that far back. Not that this matters, as the race, like most of the races nowadays, was chip-timed via an RFID chip on my shoe, so the clock becomes irrelevant.

The first mile was slightly downhill with the wind behind me but I didn’t realise that at the time. It does explain why it was one of the fastest of the race though (10:21 minute/mile) and I was desperately trying to pace myself! As soon as I started running my knees started aching (they’d felt okay that morning for the first time in weeks) and my right foot was super sore. It really hurt to run. I was not encouraged, but after about half a mile the pain receded into discomfort. Discomfort I can do.

Here’s a map/route of the course. As you can see, we ran on the race track for the first and final 3 miles, and ran about in the middle for a time, and ran round the outside of the track after that. You can click on the map (and indeed any image here) for the full size version.

Course Route, as recorded by my Garmin

Before too long we were at mile 3, and 5K was down. It’s funny, but those first 3 miles went so quickly – ironic given that the 5Ks I’ve done seem to have lasted forever in my mind. Perhaps the featurelessness of the track helped a little with that – lots of long straights and very little detail.

Steve caught me on camera as I ran past near the start line:

Waving!

At this point we stopped running on the main track and we were onto service roads and similar – the track was very bumpy at times, and lots of dust blowing around. I took a photo as I passed the mile 4 marker.

Mile 4 Marker

The track temperature was also very warm, and although the wind was still there, it was warm too. Very glad I hadn’t wrapped up warmer, in fact I was close to overheating a few times.

I also kept getting caught up in a caterpillar. About 40 runners (that’s how many it seems!) were tied together in pairs, and in a chain as well. They seemed to be keeping a similar pace to me and kept getting in the way, very frustrating especially at one of the drinks stations. EDIT – please see my comments at the end if you’re thinking of complaining about this *observation* – I fully support the Caterpillar and what they’re doing and they seemed like a great bunch of people, but this race report is about me and my race and the things that affected it, not anyone else’s.

The Caterpillar

A few people made F1 sounds as we went round corners, and a marshall was listening to the race (in Bahrain!) live on the radio as I ran past but I tried not to listen too carefully as I was recording the race to watch later and didn’t want spoilers!

Mile 4 was actually the quickest, at a surprising 10:18 minute/mile. I was genuinely surprised at how fast I was going – but was certain I was going to run into trouble later. Whilst I can still do a 5K in under 30 minutes (just!) it would tire me out doing it at the start of a half marathon, which is over four 5Ks. I got a little concerned I was going too fast, so I made an effort to slow down for Mile 5 (10:38)

Normally I’d be bored like on my long training runs, but it was fun to run with so many other people and catch snippets of conversations, or read the stuff on the backs of their shirts (lots of people seem to run in memory of people) – so it made for a much better run than usual.

At Mile 6, Steve caught me running past again!

Me disappearing into the distance

Shortly after that, we saw the eventual winners run past near the end on the track nearby. Demotivating!!

It was around this time I started feeling quite dehydrated. I’d foolishly thrown away my bottle of water I’d got at mile 3, thinking there would be more water not long after. Alas at mile 5 (I think) all they had was Lucozade Sports drink, and whilst I drink that after a run sometimes, I don’t fancy it on a run, and besides I’d brought along gels. Mixing the two would be quite unpleasant and sugary. The next water station turned out to be almost at mile 8 by which point I was really suffering.

There were a few bridges to run over (very steep!) which killed my speed a bit. This was the hardest part of the race by far – we headed onto a route around the outside of the circuit on service roads and there was little wind but very hot temperatures. I can’t remember many details as it was pretty featureless, but my times slid down a little, closer to 11 minute miles. But with every mile that passed I remained stunned that I hadn’t dropped over an 11 minute mile pace – I was fully expecting to have run out of steam by that point as I often do on my training runs. Two weeks ago at mile 8 my speed dropped to 13 minute miles and never really recovered, so I was amazed to still be doing 10:51 at mile 9.

Mile 10 came round and I decided to try out the caffeine gel I had. I think I will not be trying caffeine gels again. Within 5 minutes of taking it, I was having terrible stomach cramps, and my speed dropped right down to 11:12 as a result – not the plan. I also sent my last update to Twitter, although I didn’t realise that at the time.

Miles 11 and 12 maybe I got some benefit from the caffeine as I started going a little faster, in fact Mile 12 was a 10:29 much to my surprise – I think I’d been a bit disappointed by the 11:12 of the mile before. Certainly I got a second wind from somewhere which is amazing because normally during my training runs once the speeds starts dropping it never recovers. Or maybe it was discovering that the 11 minute mile team were right behind me after I’d overtaken them around mile 3.

Mile 12 and I tried to update my Twitter but network congestion meant it kept on failing. I kept on trying for the rest of the race and never did manage to update at all, until we got home! Poor show, O2. It’s not like it was an F1 race day – it was a fraction of the attendance.

Knowing the end was in sight, I tried to give it my all, but the course had a trick up its sleeve. We were returning back the same way we’d run earlier – so instead of a downhill with the wind behind, it was an uphill with the wind right in our faces. Here’s the course elevation:

The course elevation

As you can see, the last mile was horrific. Ugh. So my time was 11:07 despite the fact I was putting in a serious amount of effort. I had to let the 11 minute mile pacers run past me as there was no way I could keep up with them up that hill.

Finally I reached the top. And Steve captured me running over the top too!

Coming over the top of the final hill

I was absolutely shattered, and my darned phone was not updating! My heart rate had shot right up (it was already about 5bpm higher after taking the caffeine gel – another reason to avoid it) and was close to maximum. Yet I was still super impressed that I was still able to run at this pace 13 miles into the race – this is very much a first for me – my previous record of running before collapsing (i.e. suddenly losing 2-3 minutes per mile in pace) is 10 miles.

I was clutching my phone in one hand and a bottle of water (having learned my lesson!) in the other as I passed Steve near the finish line.

Clutching my water and phone

I waved my phone at Steve out of exasperation – it was fortunate he knew how poor the signal was or he would have thought I’d fallen victim to one of the ambulances that were circling the course with blue lights on (worrying!!)

Waving my misbehaving phone at Steve

My pace had dropped right down, but it’s traditional to do a sprint finish. So I gritted my teeth, increased my pace to somewhere in the 9 minute miles (seriously!) and sprinted the final few hundred yards across the finish line. Ugh.

I staggered over to the chip removing dudes and asked the one I had if I was allowed to stop running now. Apparently I was. So I got my goody bag and staggered off to find Steve.

Just finished the race

Here’s my “finished about 10 minutes previously” pose, complete with medal.

So I got myself changed (there were lots of toilets free, a miracle!) then returned to the car – I fed C whilst a bunch of people with excessively large vehicles parked around us and ate champagne and scotch eggs and then I drove us all the 2.5 hours home. Ow.

So – what was my final time?

The official chip time is here of 2 hours, 22 minutes and 9 seconds. Garmin has me at 2hr22:13, but I think I started my timer a fraction early. Here’s my mile splits:

My mile splits

As you can see, I actually ran 13.28 miles – when corrected, my half marathon time is more like 2hr20 minutes – even better! The extra is probably due to all the weaving, just about everyone had a similar time on their Garmin – the course is measured via the shortest possible route and with big crowds you can’t always manage that.

Regardless, I smashed my hoped-for goal of 2 hours 30. I also finished in the top two thirds of women runners – not bad considering only serious runners were likely to enter and I haven’t been doing the training I ideally should. So I was very happy – not just over the time, but also over the fact I kept going for 13 miles and didn’t significantly drop my pace. I don’t know how much longer I’d have managed at that pace, but it was reassuring nonetheless. It means, so long as I don’t suffer any major training setbacks, I can aim for a 5-5.30 hour marathon time.

Here’s a chart showing my pace over the race: (click for bigger)

My pace graph

As you can see, it was mostly a steady pace except at the end with the big long hill, and the patch in the middle where I was dehyrated. A huge improvement on my usual fairly straight line before the pace just drops off suddenly!

What makes it all the more remarkable is that within a few hours of getting home, I came down with a horrible gastric flu/norovirus/winter vomiting bug/stomach flu/whatever and could barely move from bed. I’d felt weird after the race but put it down to the caffeine gels. I wonder if it was them that caused the stomach cramps or not.. I guess I will have to try them again on a long run. Anyway that explains the late update of this race report – I’m only now able to function a little again.

So – the medal!

Front of medal

Back of medal

All in all, an enjoyable race, in very interesting (albeit dull for non-F1 fans) surroundings, with good opportunities for personal bests. If I ever run again in the future, I’d definitely want to do this race again.

I was particularly pleased with how well I managed – I am wondering if perhaps my times were getting so dreadful with my other long runs because I was over-training. Certainly my knees caused me no bother and after the first half a mile my feet behaved themselves too. Taking those two weeks off, and eating lots of carbs in the days before, really seems to have helped. I am feeling a lot more confident now about the big event – less than six weeks away now!

The Movember 10K 2009 Race Report

To be honest, I was going to have to pull out of this. I’d spent the last two weeks with both a sore neck, and latterly, a cough and cold with a mild fever. Plus I hadn’t been out properly running for 3 weeks and had only done a little run two weeks earlier. I was disappointed, because I didn’t want to let this great opportunity to race Steve (husband!) go.

However, I spoke to the doctor on Wednesday and he said that so long as I didn’t have a fever, I would be good to race. My cough was still a bit dodgy but the doctor had listened to my chest and declared it clear. I ran up to the hairdresser (half a mile there) on Friday evening and didn’t seem to be suffering too much so I decided to go ahead with the race.

Steve, you have to remember here, has done ZERO training for this. In fact when he ran with me with the pushchair back in August and did 2.7 miles without stopping, that was the furthest he’d ever run in his life. Let alone the 6.22 miles of a 10K. He doesn’t *do* running. He doesn’t do any fitness activity in fact, short of carrying the children round lots and walking to the station and back. He eats healthily, although he does like the fat on meat and pork scratchings and the odd can of beer of an evening. Despite all this, he is an ideal weight with no extra fat and super strong. It is Unfair. He doesn’t even have proper running shoes so I lent him my old Nike Pegasus ones (we’re the same size) which may not even be right for his gait, but given his ability to deal with whatever I figured it wouldn’t matter.

Saturday morning dawned.. well, it didn’t really. It was raining so hard and the clouds were so black I don’t believe there was a dawn! All the weather reports were for vile storm conditions with huge gusting gale force winds and torrential rain. Which was what we could see out the window, along with thunder and lightening almost overhead. Plus, my temperature was slightly raised (by less than a degree) and I didn’t feel 100%. I made the decision then and there to not push it.

So we got ourselves dressed, and very wet en-route to the train station. We met up with Kim, a friend who had extremely kindly offered to look after the children for us whilst we ran. As the weather was so dreadful, she took them back to her place nearby. The run itself was taking place in Greenwich Park, one of the royal parks in London and also coincidentally near the start of the London Marathon. Greenwich Park has the Royal Observatory at the top, and the meridian line (GMT) runs through it. It also contains a very steep hill.. short, but steep.

I tried lightly jogging up the hill en-route to the start to try and determine if I should wear my new bright red tracksuit top or not. It was still raining at this point so I decided I would. We reached the top of the hill and the start line and met up with Jacqui, who I had done the London Peace Run with a few months ago.

Steve and Jacqui at the start ** Official photo (c) IES Photography

Click on any photo for the full-size version. Note: There are quite a few official race photos in this lot simply because I didn’t have Steve to take photos this time! All official photos are (c) IES Photography and marked as such.. I have purchased a license to use them in this context for personal use so please do not redistribute them although why you would want to outside this race report I have no idea!!

The whole point of the Movember 10K was to wear a moustache, on behalf of the Movember charity which supports prostate cancer (or more like unsupports it but you get what I mean!) And for those of us ladies who don’t have the ability to grow a moustache, we had to draw one on. So we did! Mine wasn’t very clear, a sort of ginger/purple affair after the ginger lip liner I’d brought along snapped and Jacqui lent me her purple liner!

Steve and me at the start

Photo taken by Jacqui on my iPhone!

After queueing for the toilet, I noticed it was raining less. In fact, it was bright sunshine. And no gales. Completely random! So I made the decision to run without my tracksuit top on after all.

We left our bags at the baggage drop, and lined up at the start. And we were off!

The route

Here’s the route. It was pretty complicated, and we needed to run up the steep hill three times, but there were no problems running it as there were plenty of people to follow!

We’d deliberately started near the back as we all knew none of us were likely to win that day. Within a few hundred yards Steve was not enjoying himself.

Steve getting stuck in and studiously ignoring race photographer! ** Official photo (c) IES Photography

Shortly afterwards Jacqui dropped back a little, and Steve and me were left with a gorilla in a Mankini to stare at for the next 5K! However, before too long Steve settled down and said he actually felt quite comfortable running at this pace. Which was good, as it was a full minute a mile less than my normal running pace and I was not feeling good at all!

Feeling rough ** Official photo (c) IES Photography

We did the first mile in 10:28, but to me it felt more like I’d done it in 9:28. The first half of the course was two laps around the top bit, although there was a super steep hill not long after the start going up alongside Maze Hill. I did manage to run it at least. There were also water stations which was good. Steve discovered how you get cramp after you drink water. I discovered it’s not easy drinking out of cups either when running. My moustache started to fade!

Running together ** Official photo (c) IES Photography

The second mile was 10:12, a little faster. But then it was flat! I probably felt the best during this mile. The third mile I was starting to not feel great, and we did it in 10:37. Steve was staying with me because he’d never run this far before so he was wary of running out fast and then being exhausted so I was pacing him. At the 5K point I think my time was something dreadful like 32 minutes, the second slowest 5K I’d ever run even in training besides my first 5K.

The second half of the race was running around the bottom section of the park. The weather turned a bit and it started to rain. By mile 4 (10:22 thanks to the downhill!) I was starting to feel hot and I knew it wasn’t just sweat. The low grade fever I’d had earlier in the week was coming back. It was getting harder and harder to run. And then the winners ran past us in the opposite direction at quite some speed.. heh, I doubt I could sprint that fast!

Running is Serious Business ** Official photo (c) IES Photography

Mile 5 (11:38) had a massive hill to climb. And for the first time ever in a race, and for the first time in months, I walked. I made it halfway up, but I was already running at a 13 minute mile pace and so I figured I’d be better off walking at a 14 minute mile pace and conserve a lot more energy. Steve sprinted up to the top. I walked and felt like crap. Hence the slow time for that mile.

At the top of the hill, the route turned back on itself so we could run down the hill again and we passed Jacqui who wasn’t that far behind us at all! Once we were on the straight again, we were so thinned out by this point that regular park users kept wandering on the path. Some pretended to run alongside and were being patronising “Oh don’t do that and make them feel bad” – I can assure you I did not feel bad – I’d covered 8K by this point and was suffering from a fever so the fact I was keeping up with them, fresh, was hardly something to feel bad about.

Mile 6 (12:11) was horrendous and the slowest mile I’ve run, even with the pushchair, since August I think. Most of it was uphill. I’m afraid to say I walked most of the uphills. Steve sprinted up them and waited for me at the top. My fever was quite clearly there and if I hadn’t been near the end I’d have walked the rest of the way. I was feeling extremely rough indeed. And there was one final hill.

Course elevation

As you can see from the elevation of the course (click the photo to open full size in a new window), the hills were pretty steep. And the final hill came in at 9.5K! Yes, I walked half of it and yes Steve waited at the top again. He was very good – basically I’d told him that if he went off without me I’d probably (such the idiot that I am) try and catch him up and do myself more damage. Plus I was a bit worried in case I collapsed and I’d rather want him to be there if I did! And given he’d been alongside me for most of the race, we figured we might as well finish as we started.

So, top of the hill, 200m to go, we “sprinted” across the finish line together!

Our Extremely Twee Finish ** Official photo (c) IES Photography

Here’s the official result: (click to see full size in a new window, or click the link to the left to see “live” on the site)

Official race timings

Unfortunately for Steve, it appears I won but only because my number was less than his – our other two times (gun time, from when the gun was fired, and the chip time) were identical!

We picked up our medals, and our free razors and shaving gels and stuff(!) plus our free bananas, vitamin water and jelly babies. And Jacqui (who finished only 3 minutes behind us!) took another photo of us:

Race Finish

So.. brief interlude for some statistics!

Here’s the mile split times – appalling for me!

Split times

Yes, I finished in 67:26. My first ever 10K in training was 67:12. Heck, the second 5K was 35:26, slower than my first ever 5K in training which was 33:41.

A month ago, as part of an 8 mile run, I did 10K in 57:54. I was a whole TEN MINUTES slower this time. Look at the speed comparison (red was Movember, blue was the training run. Higher is faster)

Comparison against a 10k training run I did a few weeks earlier

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what a low grade fever, a cough, no proper training for 3 weeks, and a sore neck will do for you.

Where did we finish? 520 and 521 out of 620 competitors. If I’d finished in my personal best time from a month ago, I’d have been around 320th or so.. and in an ideal world I’d have improved upon that with an extra month of training. We were beaten by tons of old people and people dressed in bad running gear and all sorts. Here’s the official results table.

Ultimately, Steve could have finished a lot faster and would have beaten me.. but he doesn’t know by how much as I held him back! And if I’d been in peak fitness, I may well have beaten him. We just don’t know. So we will need a rematch when I’m fitter for sure!

As for the race itself as a 10K? Very well organised, very friendly people and apart from finding it hard going, I couldn’t fault anything at all. The race organisers were the same people who did the Epsom 5K Dash where I finally broke 30 minutes for 5K a few months back, and the organisation had been great then as well. The layout of the course was good (got to be tough fitting 10K into Greenwich Park) and the marshalls were nearly all very supportive. The atmosphere was very friendly altogether in fact. So I will definitely look out for these race people in future – great work! The weather had been perfect when it mattered too, although nobody can take credit for that!

The story doesn’t quite end here. As we headed over to Kim’s house to pick up the children, I was feeling a bit odd. After we’d picked the children up, got changed and had a chat, we started walking to the DLR to get home. It started torrential rain and galing again, and this time the low grade fever came back with a vengeance. I was shaking violently and white as a sheet and had nowhere to sit down. We got on the train and I honestly thought I was going to collapse. We had to change trains at Greenwich and there isn’t much shelter on the platform there either. Fortunately the wait was only 7 minutes. After that instead of walking home from Woolwich station as I had planned, I caught the bus on my own and Steve walked back with the children.

I never did find out what my temperature got up to because I was so cold when I got in the reading wasn’t accurate and by the time I had warmed up, the ibuprofen had kicked in a little. Anyway, it read 38.5C at the highest but I am sure it felt far more like a 39.5C fever (103F and above) as I was feeling so absolutely horrible and shivering so violently. It felt like full on flu.

Anyway, the good news is that after some rest, a little bit of food and so on later that evening I felt a lot better and, touch wood, the fever has not returned. I think it was just my body saying “errr, what was all that about?” and warning me not to run when I wasn’t totally healthy. I will heed that lesson!

So, I probably won’t go out training for a bit until my cough is better and I am sure my fever has gone as I’m sure it won’t speed up my recovery. So no training again for a while. I am seriously worried if this sort of stuff happens early next year when I am doing my proper marathon training. I can’t afford to take a month off.. the training plan I have chosen requires 3-4 times a week for 18 weeks.

Hopefully I will feel better soon! Interestingly my muscles did not hurt today and they clearly had loads of strength left yesterday when I was going up hills – it was my heart and lungs that hated me.

You may be interested to hear that Steve had a slight blister from the Nike Pegasus shoes of mine he borrowed right where I had the blister. I knew those shoes made blisters!! Nowhere near as big as mine were from it though, and only over 5K. Typical!