It is a great local race and it never fails to deliver a sunny and warm morning. Thankfully it wasn't boiling hot this year, my Strava tells me it was 15 degrees. It definitely felt warmer than that to me, but it was far from the 24-25 degrees that it can be, and I was grateful for the lower temperatures and the occasional cloud cover we received.
Lauren was in charge of taking the girls to and from dancing this morning and so that allowed me to enjoy the race worry free. I left the house at 7am and it meant I arrived at the start by half 7, an hour and a half before the off and even then there was still a short queue for the carpark. I was then able to relax, enjoying some time on a bench looking out to sea, some trips to the portaloos before the masses arrived, a protein bar and some water, it was a lovely calm and stressfree build-up, a marked difference from my London Marathon experience.
I skipped the formal warm-up, infact I skipped any form of warm-up and was caught lounging on the grass five minutes before the start by a fellow runner who commented on how relaxed I looked and he wasn't wrong. I dragged myself off the floor and got myself to the start. The organisers had staggered the starts, first the wheelchair athletes, then the sub 1:30 runners then the rest of us. I positioned myself near the front of the rest of us. I was targeting sub 1:40 and so couldn't in good conscience go in the sub 1:30 wave.
I almost regretted that decision because when we did start the course was all very narrow and I was going frustratingly slow for the first couple of hundred metres. My Garmin has me doing 9:30 miles and my average for the race was more like 7:30 miles. It quickly settled down and as the roads widened I was able to get into my running properly. I think I might have over compensated somewhat as my Garmin beeped through the first km in 4:36 which was 10 seconds faster than my target of 4:45, 4:45 for the race would get me in and around that 1:40 target.
The first few km's are on small roads as we wind our way to the seafront, there were some speed bumps to negotiate along with some tight turns, it's a gentle downhill, on fresh legs those km's go by in a flash. Once on the flat of the seafront we had our first water station and I fail spectacularly, the water was in big paper cups and I went to grab it and muffed it, the cup hit the floor. After that I slowed almost to a stop for half a second to ensure safe receipt of the cup before getting going again. It wasn't ideal but I knew I needed to get the water onboard. I didn't bring any gels or nutrition with me, so it was just H2O all the way for me.
The km's were getting ticked off in short order and the splits were staying very consistent.
1km - 4:36
2km - 4:33
3km - 4:30
4km - 4:35
5km - 4:36
First 5km in 22:50.
I was aware that I was going faster than the planned pace but the effort felt manageable and so I just went with it. The race has lots going for it, it's local, the weather, it's flat and the crowds are good. One of the small downsides is the course is pretty samey being a two-loop run of the seafront. That familiarity does mean that you know exactly what is coming up and it allows you to measure your efforts. The lack of gradient also helps with this. The one variable that can impact your pacing is the wind and Strava said that was about 10mph, I don't know if others struggle with this, but I can't for the life of me tell if I am wind assisted or wind against at that wind speed.
I was settling into a good rhythm and for such a crowded race I remarkably found myself in lots of space which suits me beautifully. The water stations were plentiful and I was taking water onboard at almost every one and my pick-up and drinking technique was improving with each one. The km's were passing at a good clip and the pace stayed consistent throughout the second quarter of the race.
6km - 4:34
7km - 4:33
8km - 4:34
9km - 4:27
10km - 4:30
Second 5km in 22:38.
With no music and not much else to keep my mind busy, it does give you time to contemplate just how far there is left to go. I remember seeing my watch tick over to 40 minutes and I thought I've still got an hour to go. With the looped nature of the course you are also seeing future mile markers before you reach them, with mile 2 and mile 7 markers close to each other. I thought about that 7 mile marker alot! In my heart I think I knew I had gone out a little too fast and I was going to be hanging on in the second half and so it proved.
11km - 4:38
12km - 4:48
13km - 4:46
14km - 4:44
15km - 4:44
Third 5 km in 23:40.
That 11th km is almost the transitional km of the race. The first 10km at 4:30 - 4:35 km's the second 10km at 4:45 and this 11th km at 4:38 being an inbetweenie. It was my slowest km of the race thus far. I think it was a conscious effort to slow myself down, I wanted a managed decline and not an explosion. After that km I found my new rhythm of 4:45 per km. I am amazed how consistent I was able to keep the pace as I really began to suffer. Running isn't pain, you have to do it for too long to be painful, but it is definitely sustained discomfort and suffering. That's a T-shirt slogan right there.
The fourth and final quarter was light on discomfort and heavy on suffering.
16km - 4:45
17km - 4:42
18km - 4:46
19km - 4:48
20km - 4:42
Fourth 5km in 23:43.
You have the only slight incline on the course as you come off the seafront just before 11 miles. 3.5km to go it should be the push to the finish, I made it to the top of the hill and my HR will have been 180+ at that point.
I then tried to recover on the flat without much success. It was a slog to the finish from here. The runners really had thinned out at this point. On the seafront running at the pace I did you would see both the leaders and the back markers and with the looped course it was always bustling. Now we were on the residential roads heading for the finish it was a much quieter and lonelier experience, both in terms of runners and spectators.
We were now really close to home as we hit the section that makes up part of the Southend parkrun, I was flagging big time, the thought of walking was constantly on my mind. I kept pushing on, and then there was a minor upslope with 800m to go and I stopped and walked! You mad man. The three or four runners who passed me all encouraged me on, after 10 or 15 seconds I sorted myself out and got moving and I was moving well.
Then we were into the crowds for the finish and I started to shift through the gears, making a big push for the line. The Garmin stopped and it was mercifully over, 1:38:08 was the official time. Nearly 2 minutes quicker than my target, it could have been a 1:36 if I had sustained that early pace but I think 1:38 was all I really had today however I would have paced it.
The 21st km was 4:46 even with the walk break, then a 33 second surge for the line at 6 minutes per mile.
The 1:38 was five minutes faster than my time at Middlesbrough in March. It was my fastest half marathon since a 1:35 at Great Bentley in 2015. It my 8th fastest half marathon all time, 2011 was a good year for me as they take my top five times.
In terms of WAVA it is third, only behind the Great North Run in 2011 - 1:30:05 and the Southend Half in 2011 of 1:32:09. I will keep working away, and see where this takes me. To get into PB territory over the half marathon I am going to need to lose another 23 seconds a km or so, which is enormous, but I'm trending in the right direction, and I'm enjoying it despite the discomfort and the suffering. See you next year Southend for a 10th time.
