2016 Championship - Race 7 - Manchester Half Marathon
My Manchester half marathon started on Friday afternoon. Following all the emails in the past few weeks from the race organisers setting out the course, transport logistics, where to spend further money on photos, reminders to bring running trainers and so forth, I was aware that this course was as runners refer to, a “PB hunting ground”. Therefore instead of leaving Manchester and heading home north, and to the sanctuary of my usual running locations of the fells and trails of Scout Moor I headed southwest to an area I know less well to understand just what this meant. I soon found out that this means a flat as a pancake course. The only elevation being the odd bridge every few miles. Driving back round the M60 all I could think of was how I was going to run this race. Friday night was spent “googling” trying to impart wisdom on this topic. My usual technique of hold back and pick people off on the inclines as useless a technique as there could be for this course.
Come Sunday morning – armed with the advice from various so called professionals of starting the race 5-10 seconds a mile below required pace and then kick on at the end – I was ready (but nervous). Reaching the event village I was pleasantly surprised with the toilet situation. While not a usual topic for conversation, for us runners it is a key consideration – and it felt like there was one for each participant – well planned I thought! A short 5-10 minute walk from the athletes village was the start area. At this point, everyone was hoping that the forecast rain would hold off, however we were not to be so lucky. A downpour 5 minutes before the start just to soak everyone through, and then we were off.
Looking back at previous race reports, the narrative of the race itself gets quite a good chunk of airtime (as would be expected given this is an actual race report) – however sadly you might be disappointed here if this is what you are after. The course heads from Old Trafford down towards Manchester, loops back through various side streets before returning back to the start area around mile 3. By this point I was 10 seconds ahead of my required pace (oops!). Following this comes the long slog down Chester Road to Sale and the mile 7 marker, followed by more looping around side streets to then pick back up Chester Road at mile 11. Memorable moments at this point were mile 8 where we inclined slightly over a Metrolink line and mile 10 when it briefly stopped raining. However the crowd were out in force despite the weather and coming down the home straight towards the cricket club I was somehow still 10 seconds ahead of my targeted pace.
A new PB – the euphoria!
A short walk from the finish line comes the usual post-race pack (T-shirt, medal, water, energy bars) and then an even more shorter walk after came the rather unusual non-alcoholic lager bar! It is worth elaborating here on the short walk – this was a mere 150 metres. I only mention this as during this walk a disgruntled runner was giving an unfortunate volunteer some ear ache that the water was not right at the finish (I think his chip time was probably 1 second above his PB!). Therefore if you cannot muster 150 metres after 13.1 miles – sadly this race is probably not for you; however if you are like me and like a chance to let your brain, lungs and legs all try to come back to some sort of normality without the organisers cries of “move on please” then this is just another plus on what I thought was a very well organised event.
After picking up my goodies, I start loitering around the finish area with my body temperature rapidly declining due to my sodden attire, where I came across (separately) Tim Shaw and Tim Hayle – both in buoyant mood following impressive times (Tim S knocking off a good couple of minutes off his PB and Tim H close to or even beating his PB). Following brief chats it was time to head home. While the weather somewhat made this a forgone conclusion, I guess one of the downsides of such a large event is the inability to congregate as a group after – and thus I sadly bumped into no more NWFPAC members.
Reaching home, and following a nice long bath and some food, it’s time to right this report. Dave – ever in his efficiency already has an email waiting for me in my inbox with the results! Looking down the listing, a plethora of impressive times. Dave will no doubt have already set out what all these results mean in terms of the championships but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of other PBs arise in here. Not a polling technique that will get used in the upcoming Presidential election (3 people out of 10,000+ polled), but the times of Tim, Tim and I do suggest there will be some more. On a personal note, it seems I was just pipped at the post for the victory. I haven’t met Gareth before therefore I am unsure whether we were close and racing or simply drawn close by our individual chip times – but even so – Gareth a worthy winner (I just hope he is not someone who likes his water very close to the finish).
In summary, while not my usual go to race, everything felt well organised and the course just made for a fast time – therefore I think I’ll be running this race again sometime in the future.
Thanks Matt, a great race report there. Our provisional results were as follows:
Ladies:
Helen Charlesworth (BDO) – 1:47:18 – 20 points
Amanda Allen (Clearwater International) – 2:01:09 – 18 points
Men:
Gareth Davies (Michael Page) – 1:23:34 – 20 points
Matt Smith (Deloitte) – 1:23:37 – 18 points
Tim Shaw (Deloitte) – 1:24:57 – 16 points
Ian Nuttall (Deloitte) – 1:29:05 – 14 points
James Wall (Kuits) – 1:29:12 – 12 points
Tim Hayle (Deloitte) – 1:32:47 – 10 points
Brian Devlin (NatWest) – 1:34:35 – 9 points
John Williams (EY Transaction Advisory Services) – 1:35:03 – 8 points
Miles Burgess (Positive Cashflow Finance) – 1:46:00 – 7 points
Alan Budenberg (Barclays Wealth) – 1:53:52 – 6 points
Steven Henderson (EY Transaction Advisory Services) – 1:57:00 – 7 points
David Gorman (Castlefield Investment Partners) – 2:04:27 – 4 points