The week before the Milton Keynes Half it was looking rather unlikely that I’d even be there as I was feeling extremely feeble due to a cold, I felt improved on Saturday though so decided to turn up and just take it steady. By lucky coincidence Sharon and Keith found me wandering round one of the free parking areas looking for somewhere to pay and explained the meaning of the green paint (this means free parking in MK, in Oxford it means you’re standing in a cycle lane) then escorted me to the start.
We hung round in the chilly light rain, me putting off stripping down to my running vest till the last moment, where we met up with Manuel. Sharon was off to the start of the 10k 15 minutes before we were due to start the Half, the organisers had allowed a suitable time gap unlike last year when the faster Half runners had to squeeze pass the slower end of 10k. Next Manuel and Keith went to take their places near the front of the Half start while I tried unsuccessfully to guess where the middle was, some time markers would have been good. Then we were off!
The race starts gently downhill for three miles and I was obliged to exceed my planned 8:20 pace. I saw Peter passing and caught him to say a quick hello though I declined his kind offer for me to follow him round for a PB as I think I’d have blown up pretty soon. The drizzle cleared and I felt comfy in vest and shorts as various overdressed runners struggled out of jerseys and waterproofs. I’d started much too far forward and had to watch a couple of hundred runners pass me before finding my proper place, always a bit disillusioning.
Still running sub 8 min miles I felt pretty good at halfway so decided to hang on in and build up a minute or two for the generally uphill finish in the hope of an unplanned PB. I really needed those minutes for the last few miles which seemed to be a succession of gentle but sapping climbs which made me just want to get it over with. A runner dressed as a banana overtook me but I couldn’t stick with him, I was passing more than passed at this stage though. Sharon and Keith tell me I was smiling when they offered encouragement at mile 13 so good to know the pain didn’t show.
Dazed but happy I decided against sampling the Orange and Ginger gel in the eclectic goody bag which was fortunate as it was a shower gel not an energy one. Peter found us and we got the girl on the bag drop to take our photo.
Turned out I’d just scraped a 2 second PB finishing in 1:44:47 632/2516 so pleased to see my previous sub 1:45 wasn’t just a fluke!
Sharon, me, Keith and Peter