Shakespeare Half Marathon - 29 April 2007...

Distance: 13.1 miles

In a time of...
hh:mm:ss
01:36:32

Finishing Position: 148
Number of finishers: 1714
Putting me in the top: 8.63%

I’d been looking forward to this race for some time, and felt confident I’d improved in fitness and performance from last year (though admittedly I hadn’t done as many long training runs as I’d have liked to). It had been more or less 10 months since I’d last competed with Howard too, so I was looking forward to seeing how he was doing as well.

Howard knew I was quicker than last year, and in fact the last time we raced I’d managed to finish ahead of him, though we were both aware that his poor pacing strategy had played into my hands that day. How well would he pace himself in this race? Howard is generally a much fitter sports person than me (you only have to compare our builds in the race photo’s!) yet running was the one sport that I really focused on. Little did I know at the time he had a plan to follow from the outset.

The race started and I paid no attention to where Howard went once we came out of the town centre. I stuck consistently to a comfortable pace, the hill at mile 4 was no problem and it was soon after that I realised Howard was behind me, literally right behind me, and his race plan dawned on me – he knew if he paced the race sensibly he would be me, and also knew sensible pacing was one of my stronger points. So I knew he was going to stick with me the whole race before tearing me apart at the end. It’s strange really, I barely remember anyone else in the race at all – I just remember trying to plan how I could disrupt Howard’s strategy!

By the time we reached the greenway (mile 9’ish) my calf muscles were tightening a little, yet I tried on several occasions to make a break from Howard to avoid the inevitable scenario of him breaking away at the end of the race, yet every time he was able to match me for pace and we stayed together. The pace slowly picked up as we approached the final mile, and with half a mile to go, Howard began to make his move and I simply couldn’t match him, he broke probably 10-20m ahead and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t reel him back in. The home straight was approaching fast, and whilst I would usually sprint finish, Howard was just too far ahead to catch, or was he? I turned the final corner onto the grass finishing straight, and whilst I’d caught Howard a little, you can see the distance between us in the photo to the right, but I wanted to achieve the best time I possibly could so decided to push for the line anyway. I gritted my teeth and dug deep, and before I knew it I was closing on Howard! Closer and closer I got, but alas, not close enough; he crossed the line a single second ahead of me.

Exhausted, I was happy with my time and performance and whilst I always talk so much about the competitiveness between me and Howard, it is always friendly and well humoured, we are after all great friends! Next year though, I WILL get him...