Today I had a half-marathon race in Paddock Wood, Kent. That is in the southeast of England. Again, I smashed my PB from last year’s Cardiff half. That was 1:58:10. Today I managed 1:56:34. That’s a full 1:36 off of my time. I managed 8:54 per mile and my aim had been to try and do 8:55 per mile, so I am pleased with the results. You can see the map here. I know these seem like small increments off of times but seven seconds faster per mile is still a big feat. Anyone who has ever run knows how precious seconds are when running a race. My colleague who also runs tells me of a friend in his running club who ran the marathon in three hours and one second. One second and he is over three hours. One second can make all the difference.
Well, regardless of all the talk of seconds I am very happy with the result not only because I have a new PB but because I found today much easier than the half in Cardiff in October. I felt much fitter. I paced myself as much as possible and tried to avoid going too fast too soon. This meant I was able to kick things up into higher gear for the last two miles and even managed 8:00 per mile a few times. I also did a proper sprint to the finish. I was caning it towards that finish line. According to the Garmin graph I was doing around 7:00 per mile in the last tenth of a mile.
I’m not going to say I’m not still scared to death of the marathon but, after today, I feel much better about it than I did previously. I’ve just got a few more weeks of long runs to get me ready for the mileage. Six weeks to go.