Roadrunner

Along with my rejection from the RA Summer exhibition and Record Store Day the Cardiff Half Marathon is one of the milestone events of my year. This year I was sorta relying on my foundation of training as I hadn’t put any special training in. My running schedule had been going well until it wasn’t. This was partly due to having a good time all of the time recently and I’m sure that I picked up some kind of bug. I’d tested negative for Covid but approaching the half I was feeling drained.

We had our lovely friends the Rawlingseseses staying as Tom was also running the half, and we were a little later getting to the start line that I would normally intended. This turned to be a blessing in disguise as I didn’t have time to faff around, and had my tactical slash very close to the start time. This meant for the first time in years I didn’t have to stop for a wee in the first mile! Result!

I’d decided that I wasn’t really going for a pace, so just ran to the plan I’d set for last year. I’d also not taken my water bottles or any snacks and it was a humid old day. So I had to grab water at the water stations and gobble some sweets offered by supporters. I did take some energy gel which I took just before the steep hill leading to Cardiff Bay at mile 4. It was a good run, didn’t really look at my time for most of it, felt a little fatigued around mile 10 and Roath Rec’ but dug in to churn the last three miles. That hill at mile 12 leading to Cathays is always a kick in the teeth, but I felt strong in the final mile and had way enough in the tank for the obligatory sprint finish which got me just in under the gun time of 1:43. No wobble this year after crossing the finish time. Thought it was a decent enough time, then found out later that I was 6 minutes faster than last year, so I’ll take that. In my head this was very much part of the road to the London marathon next year, so it was a fun, encouraging run before the serious training starts.