Shakes Tri Journey: Peterborough Half Marathon

So this month was all about me completing my final half marathon of the season. I have ran 2 others prior to this competitively and I have managed to do a few half marathon training runs. This would be the race where I could truly see how far I have come. I ran my first ever half marathon back in February this year and I found it very difficult as I had no idea about pacing and I had never ran that distance before.

So on the 12th October it would give me a real idea how my training has come along. The race is flat and I heard it was a great course to achieve a PB time. It was also the perfect race as the two friends who called me fat back in January were both able to run the race. One of the friends I had already beaten at 5km and 10km distance now was time to see if I could do it at a half marathon.

RACE DAY
Weather conditions were really good, no wind and not too hot. I took two days rest before this event as I want to be really fresh and ready for this race. This wasn't me racing my friends like it may sound above. This was about me racing me. I have never felt this fit and healthy before and I knew that I could run this race well. The night before I worked out my pace I wanted to achieve and put that in to my watch. I had with me my two energy gels one to take just before the start of the race and one at around half way mark depending how I felt. I had a time in my head that I share with no one till I have ran the race that time was to run sub 1:40hrs.
I started off nice and steady and one of my friends went flying off, as much as wanted to follow him I hung back hoping that my race plan would pay off and that I would catch up with him. Well I think we got to the 5km mark I felt really good and I had already caught my mate up. So at the 5km I picked up my pace leaving my two mates behind me. This carried on for the next 5km. I thought to myself that they will come past me at any moment, Well only one of them did and he started pulling away from me. I thought to myself there is no way I can catch him now, so I went back to my race pace I had planned and by the 18km mark I had caught back up with him and had overtaken him again. I pushed on as hard as I could my legs were hurting and on the last Km my legs had started to cramp up. I managed to finish the race strongly and my finish time was 1:34:44. This meant I had knocked approx 15 mins of my previous half marathon.

That's not me smiling that is a pure grimace, was holding off cramp for ages