Half way there

Slightly more than half way there is you count my training as having started in December. But as I really didn't pick up the pace until the end of January, now is about half way through the four months of serious training leading to the marathon.

And speaking of halves, yesterday I finished the Edinburgh Forthside Half Marathon in 1 hour 44 minutes and 34 seconds. Just over a PB, but better than I did on the same course last year and much better than I was expecting, given my injury and general lack of preparedness (including spending the night before standing in the cold drinking beer and waiting for Al to return from a 10km adventure race. In the dark.) According to the Forthside website, I was the 133 female and 76th in my category. Not sure what my category is....non-specific girl-type runner, I imagine.

It was a fun event because lots of people I know were taking part. Friend Rob, up for the event from Lancaster, finished an incredible 27th overall with a time of just over 1 hour 16 minutes! And Ailsa and Sarah finished their first half marathon distance races in the times they were aiming for, while Colin made it round taking it easy after the previous night's race!

The legs are stiff today but a sprint workout at lunch time went ok. The race has made me a lot more confident. I set off thinking I would try a few miles at 1 hour 50 pace and see how it went - thinking I would probably slow to 2 hour pace after that. But I was able to keep it up without too much bother, so decided to stick with it. The worst two miles were mile four, an uphill section, and mile 8-9 coming back from Crammond with the wind against us. I'm pretty sure mile 11 was measured short, as there's no way I made that in the 6 minutes 6 seconds I clocked it at!

But by the last few miles I realised I'd only have to push a little harder to make 1 hour 45. It was a great, positive run to have in the bag.