I’ll set the scene for you. It was Sunday… it was 4:35am and my alarm was making a racket… outside it was raining… I had to try to wake up, get my arse out of bed, sort the dog out, get showered, dressed, fed and out of the house to pick up some of my running buddies. All this because we were running the Severn Bridge Half Marathon!
Road trip!
Once we arrived in the race village, we collected our numbers, dropped our bags off then joined the queue for the toilets.
The start…
The Severn Bridge half marathon start line was split into predicated finish times. My group said “good luck” to the speedy Pegs and SMR then made our way to the back of the queue.
And then we were off, England bound!
The main reason I signed up for this race is that I wanted to run across the bridge. It’s approximately 2 miles each way but I still had to do the other 9.1 miles apparently. Also the idea of running in both England and Wales during the same half marathon appealed to me. I’m English but I live in Wales – for those of you who didn’t know that.
Luckily the weather had cleared up and the sun had come out so the views were gorgeous.
Very soon the Pegs split up and we all ran our own race. I have a habit of killing my runs by shooting off too quickly in the first mile so I didn’t try to keep up with anyone and watched my Garmin as much as possible. Sensible won over excitement and I did a normal paced first mile. I know, I’m still in shock too!
Hello England
Once we got off the bridge, we headed into a little English village (can’t remember the name). I loved this part as it was an ‘out and back’ so I got to watch the fastest Pegs fly past me on their way back towards the bridge.
An ‘out and back’ is a good distraction, it keeps my mind off what I’m doing as I try to spot familiar faces and check out the *coughs* running ‘talent’.
The hardest part of the Severn Bridge half marathon for me was coming back over the bridge. I had started to feel tired and the bridge seemed to last FOREVER!
I was only 5-6 miles in at this point so decided to take an energy gel and see if that helped. As soon as I got off the bridge I felt my energy return and started to overtake some runners who had passed me earlier.
I’m not sure what’s worse. Suddenly coming to the bottom of a hill and realising you have to run up it or running down a long hill knowing that you have to run back up it again. We had to do the latter.
Running down was awesome. It was an ‘out and back’ again so I saw loads of my Pegs. We high 5’d and cheered each other on. Some were running and looking like they thought it would never end and some were walking up it. That bit was great!
Oh yes, THE hill
We got to the bottom and ran through another lovely village but then ended up back at the bottom of the hill again. I think there comes a time in everyone’s race where they think “F**k it, I can walk uphill quicker than I’m running it!”. So they stop shuffling their feet and hiked up that bad boy like it was Pen Y Fan. They had definitely saved the worse hill for last… bastards!
The next mile was downhill again and I just let my legs do the work. The race was nearly over and I couldn’t wait to get my shiny race bling and see my Pegs and SMR buddies.
My Garmin beeped at 13 miles and there was only 0.1 to go! Yay! But wait… what the hell is this? A hill? Another hill?!
I looked up and saw a couple of my Pegs towards the top and I knew I just had to get my arse up that hill. At the top I could see the finish and I just pelted towards it. As I got closer I heard the cheers of my Pegs and SMR so out came the “wooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooo” as I whooshed past them.
Happy runner
My chip time was 2:33:46 which was 10 minutes faster than last year’s Cardiff Half. It was a really hilly route and only my 2nd half marathon so I’m very pleased with that. Cardiff is pretty much flat so I’m planning on knocking some more time off in October.
As you know, I run to eat and I like to eat all the stuff that’s bad for me. Luckily Graham had brought a tray of donuts and was dishing them out.
Half marathon recovery
