International Women's Day - The Blizard Ladies leading from the Front

As Retford Half Marathon is a local race, we sponsor the race and a lot of the training group and wider Blizard community always run it, then I always like to try and run it where possible. 

 

My training so far has not been focussed on a half marathon and to nail a 'good" half, it is advisable to train properly for this distance! I ran 36:25 at Dewsbury 10K recently. An equivalent performance over the half distance would be 1:20:30, which having not raced over this distance for years felt unrealistic currently and I wanted to have a positive experience. My plan for the race therefore was to get a decent training session done in view of 3 shorter races coming up over the next 6 weeks. 

 

I felt that I ran the race perfectly for my current ability and surprised myself on the time that I achieved. I set off at the top end of my recovery heart rate zone (168) and after a few miles settled into a pace around 6:15 min/miles knowing that this felt 'ok" and had a good reserve of at least another 25 beats if I really have to hit the pain cave! One of the downsides was that there was a head wind and with a larger faster group just in front and slower group a lot further behind, I was solo. The faster group were within reaching distance but I was already happy with the pace I was doing and was sort of going into an unknown having not gone this fast, this long for some time, so I decided just to stay where I was, but it was challenging me mentally the group tickling me in front knowing it could be easier sat at the back but at the same time I could blow up. 

 

Half way in a half is usually around 9 ish miles mentally and physically so i used the slight downhill 8 mile section to just steady up ready to start to push on from 9 miles, thinking if i work a bit harder now I can still keep this pace going. Around 10.5 miles my heart rate now was around 185 and having worked on heart rates for years I knew that any faster and I would blow up with so far still to go given my current fitness and training. 

 

The climb up to the prison was fine but I forgot ( and do this every time) just how long the last 1/2 mile is before the finish! I never looked at the time once in the race just the heart rate and mile splits and turning into the race finish and now being very blind I thought the clock had clicked over to 1:23 which I was delighted with but when I got closer so that my eyes could focus I saw 1:22:09! This was my fastest time over 1/2 for 9 years. 

 

Delighted with how I ran the race, didn't kill myself, felt controlled throughout and it has given me a huge confidence boost now going into training for the rest of the year. 

 

Probably this time last year, if not a little earlier, throughout the lockdowns and the disappointment of races being cancelled and postponed, I decided I wanted to work on a much longer- term goal and thankfully Dave was in agreement! 

The goal is a marathon, the target I have set myself is still just wrote in the back of my training diary. 

Using Daves expertise, we set some smaller targets, knowing it takes a few marathon cycles to crack it properly. 

 

The first target being, complete a marathon without the wheels falling off and finish happy, confident and that I want to do another........job done last Autumn at Yorkshire Marathon. We could not have asked for it to go better. We learnt a few things, ready for the next one.

 

The second target, complete another marathon cycle this spring, but the main goal within the cycle is to run a faster half and the outcome of the marathon will follow. This is where this weekend's race at Retford fell in to the bigger plan, I've had a challenging couple of months, combined with running every session solo apart from two all year, Sunday meant I had to completely "trust the process". I knew that recently a few runs had indicated that my fitness had improved, so my plan was to get my heart rate to mid threshold and hold it there, (same as Vale of York half) 6 months ago. Having not done many "speed sessions" and a significant amount of my training being done at marathon pace, Dave had told me all I needed to do was have a good hard run-in threshold, running faster than marathon pace and let the rest take care of itself. 

 

I tried to ensure the first mile wasn't too fast, but in the back of my head knowing it's a fast first mile, then planned to just run to heart rate from the second mile. I had set myself some markers that I wrote on my wrist to keep my concentration. When I went through 10k, I had one of those moments of panic, that I may have gone to fast, as I was only 15 secs off my 10k PB, but I felt ok so pushed on. In the end, I managed to run at the same heart rate and same max heart rate as my last half and come away with a 2-minute PB, I also took 2 mins off my 10-mile time in the process from a race 4 weeks so could not have asked for it go any better. It felt controlled and I really enjoyed it. This has now given me the confidence that I can run the marathon at the heart rate I ran my previous one and hopefully produce a PB as part of this cycle.......then we move onto the third target in Autumn. 

 

With each smaller target, I am learning all the time, whether that is my fuelling or where I fit my S & C  in to get the best out of sessions, to prioritising my sleep over miles or learning to take unscheduled rest days, bit by bit it is coming together and getting a little bit more exciting with each cycle.