Gower Race Completed

And so I come to the first of the Half Marathons.

First, let me explain the madness of the weekend it was part of. On Friday 4th December I left work at lunchtime, and Maggie and I set out on a 1000 mile journey. By the time we got home for the second time on Monday lunchtime we had visited both our sons (separately, including loading Lawrence's belongings in Oxford and listening to Andrew play in the school Orchestra in Canterbury), both my half sisters (separately), my sister, one of Maggie's brothers, stayed 3 nights in 3 different beds, and squeezed in the half marathon as well!

The race was at the very end of the Gower Peninsular in South Wales - an extremely picturesque location, although it was a rather grey day. The organisation by the guys from Endurancelife was as efficient as I have come to expect - as was the comment at the pre-race briefing that they "believe in giving extra value for money", which on this occasion turned out to mean that the race was about a mile longer than a "normal" half marathon. They had also published new elevation data - the good news being that it no longer went as much as 1000' above sea level. The bad news being that it went close to 600' twice, with another significant climb in between, and in total close to 2000' of climbing. You might also remember that it hadn't been entirely dry for the preceeding week!

The race started with a leisurely mile down the beach. Fortunately the tide was far enough out that we were able to run on firm sand, which wasn't too difficult. Then round the coast path at the northen end of the course, before dipping back close to sea level and the first check point - 2.8 miles done in 25'24", and all was looking good. But that was before Llanmadoc Hill, which peaks at 186m (614'). I am exceptionally proud of the fact that I ran ALL THE WAY UP (and all the way down again. At the top, which is relatively flat, we also discovered the effect of a lot of Welsh rain on the top of a Welsh hill - i.e. a lot of mud!!

In training, I had discovered the importance of nutrition when running this kind of race, and had found a good way to keep going was to have half a Twix at around 1/4 distance and half at around 1/2 distance to provide energy for the latter stages of the race. During the race, I discovered the difficulty with this. It's fine on the flat, but nibbling Twix while running downhill makes it very hard to breathe properly - and the result was a most uncomfortable stitch by the time I reached the village of Llangennith at around 5 miles, something I haven't had for quite a long time.

The next stage out of Llangenith proved the value of the training in Turkey Run State Park. If you go to their web site, you will see much of the interest there is in the form of gullys, and (surprise surprise) when it rains the paths at the bottom of the gullys become streams. Which is just what had happened to the trail up towards White Moor. Which probably ought to be renamed White Marsh, as it was decidely soggy! Across there, then down to the south coast, and the second check point - officially 8 miles in 87'40", but I think that it was in this stretch that the diversion which added the extra mile was, so it was probably nearer 9 miles.

The second check point had jelly babies (hurray) - except by this stage I was full of the second half of my Twix, so didn't really need them (but had some anyway, on principal). It also was at the bottom of the steepest hill on the course. Only 100' or so, but sufficiently steep and wet that running up it was pretty much impossible (or was for me, at any rate). But I got up that, and round the very beautiful bit of the southern cliff path near the Worms Head, with a cheery wave to the coastguard. Back to Rhossilli. And then up The Beacon. Summit at 193m (637'), and yes, we went right past the trig point. Along the top, and finally down a steep, wet and slippery slope back to the starting point.

I finished in 2hrs 19'05", which given the extra mile was just around 10 minute miles. Given the terrain I was more than happy with that - I would have settled for anything under 2 1/2 hours. I was even happier when just as I finised and got into the marquee to de-register, the heavens opened - those behind me would have got very wet! I was 104th out of 281 finishers, which I was also pretty pleased with - top 100 would have been nice, but maybe next time. For calibration the winner took 1 hr 38'38", and the last man home took 3hrs 40'27".

Sadly Maggie decided it was cold and damp and she didn't want to go out, and the official photographer didn't get any pictures of me, so there aren't any pictures of me. But you can get a feel for the race overall from the photos on the Endurancelife site.

So now it's back to training ready for South Devon in February.