Virtual Half Marathon - 'Michael Page' NWFPAC 2020 Championship - Race #5

If this was to be the final virtual race it was certainly a punishing way to go, a solo half marathon, no team mates, no cycling pacers and no idea what time you need to aim for to beat those people in and around your likely running time bubble that may or may not have been sandbagging (sorry tapering) their efforts in the previous weeks!!

As someone who’s never run competitively … (let me re-phrase that, I’ve never been part of any other running club, and so I’ve never had an open race where the other people around me have known I’ve actually been racing them) … I’ve been a big fan of these virtual races for the chance to still have a purpose to the running which, being blunt, for me, is trying to beat our esteemed organiser!

My revenge mission stems from this event last November when Dave edged me out at Tatton Park by 16 seconds. It’s not quite on the scale of The Count of Monte Cristo, but as my back went the day after the Tatton Park half, it was nice have a goal to aim for. The prelude to the half was me edging Dave in the virtual 5k and the virtual 10 miler, but as I had the luxury of Strava stalking it felt a little bit like cheating. However, the foolhardiness of entering the Shropshire triathlon on the Sunday of this weekend meant I had to complete the half marathon first thing Saturday morning to get as much rest as possible.

I didn’t do a huge amount of course planning, I just figured I’d head north or south depending on the wind direction and then beg for a lift home. As it was I thought the wind was from the north so I got dropped off in Southport (psychologically I always like to run towards home). It turned out that the wind was straight across at best, so I started with a lap of the marine lake thinking that that would mean I would then have more or less the 10 miles left that is Southport to my house.

So then, how fast to push?

Clearly I’m not racing Byron (1:19:04 - incredible!), Charlie (1:26:04) or the other sub 90 minuters … although I was impressed that Bryon managed to find a route with even less elevation than my coastal route. The closest gap in the top 5 was a mere 9 second gap between Sam and Tim … both with fantastic times but who knows how that would have played out if they could have seen the gap.

Back to Dave, his mid-week patter on Strava suggested he’d be happy with 1:38:00 (Tatton was circa 1:38:30), but I wasn’t buying that! Based on my 10 mile splits I figured I could aim for 4:30kms with the usual plan of (1) try and tick of a comfortablish 10k, (2) get that pesky odd km out of the way next at the same pace, then we’re counting down for a simple 10k (3) try and hold the pace for the last 8.5k (4) last 1.5k, spend 500m trying to decide if I can kick on or not, before settling on holding on for the final km. I figured sub 1:35 gave me a chance and if I did that and lost I could accept it.

In the ladies race, I’m very proud that my team mate Nicola ran her first ever half marathon despite carrying an injury, running in near as makes no difference in 2 hours and also picked up the bonus elevation point - unfortunately for her, Charlotte came back from her holiday to continue her excellent running to take the win in a time that would have earned a bagful of points in ‘normal’ times!

Having done most of my training in kms what I hadn’t factored in was just how ‘long’ I was going to have to run to make sure I gave Dave no excuse to DQ me. I had kms on the watch and miles on the phone … Strava reckons my half time was 25 seconds faster than when I finally stopped the clock, but as there was no chance I could run it again that was the risk I had to take. Thankfully based on the results it didn’t cost me and to be honest, if I had edged past Spencer it would have been criminal given he also went for the elevation bonus point (hats off to that!)

My joy at beating Dave over 5k was short-lived when I discovered I amassed all of 3 points for the effort. Maybe I’m easily pleased, but there’s definitely more satisfaction this time round in getting into double figures, even if that is because more established runners took it easy or had a race on at the weekend (thanks Rob!).

However, the highlight of the weekend was seeing Claire set off at the start of her 20km run at the end of her epic triathlon, not just because she’s always smiling, or because at 20km I knew she wouldn’t be taking points of Nicola in the virtual race, but because it meant I had less than 500m left to run of the weekend J

As much as I’ve loved the virtual races, I’m very much looking forward to a real race at the Alderley Edge 10k, especially after Dave has made sure we’re in the same for a proper race - so that’s wave 2 if you want to see the running equivalent to Rocky IV (complete with the slow motion action!)