Stevenage Half

Ventured out to Stevenage (out near Luton), last Sunday to run in their half marathon.

It was by far the smallest race that I've entered (569 runners), so was kinda cool not to have to deal with a huge crowd.

Being a smaller race, it naturally didn't attract the big sponsors and so there wasn't the huge piles of freebies and more importantly, no where to buy any pre-race foodage... (Well there was, but I didn't find it until after the run). Due to my poor planning, I ended up going four hours between breakfast and the start of the race, so a couple of km in I was feeling hungry and a bit flat.

To be honest, at the five km mark I felt like dropping out. My knee had started playing up and was lacking any energy - even after a tasty orange gel. Put my head down and kept going and started to feel a bit better but I never felt comfortable and struggled for some big chunks of the run. I finished with a time of 2:10. I was disappointed as I wanted to improve on my previous time with the aim to break the 2hr mark in Norwich. Naturally not every race can't be a PB, so more motivation to do better in three weeks in Norwich.

As a prize for finishing, everyone was given the brightest yellow running top I've ever seen - will be good for training since it's now getting dark at 5PM.

The organisers had buses to pick people up from near the train station and take them to the start (and take back of course). Plenty of marshals around the course to point you in the right direction and of course encourage you along. Water stations were handing out plastic cups of water, which I naturally spilled down my front :) Was a good run despite my time.

http://www.fvspartans.org.uk/