Run > Race

Surrey half marathon, from Stoke Park in Guildford, out to Woking and back. Legs felt really heavy in the first mile and I thought this was going to be a bad day, but they felt much better after about 2.5 miles. Had to make a quick pit-stop at the 4-mile mark, losing about a minute, but then set about overtaking the same people again. There were quite a few little climbs on the course, and one long drag into Woking, but I was able to keep going on them all. At the halfway point I knew I was just ahead of 8-minute mile pace, and still was at the hour mark (7.5 miles). Then I saw someone ahead dressed as Zippy (very impressive given how hot it was getting), so I went charging after them, finally catching them about a mile later. I kept the same straegy going then - trying a minute or so at 7:30 ish min miles, before scaling back to 8 min miles to recover a little, then pushing on again, each time with a target in front. Although I could feel myself having to push more and more, and it hurting a lot more too, it seemed to work. Best of all, I had been worried about having to stop in the last 3 miles as I hadn't run more than 10 miles so far this year, but that didn't happen. Had originally hoped to get under 1:50 so I was thrilled with 1:44.