14th June: Swansea Half Marathon

Place: Swansea, South Wales


Organisers: Swansea Half Marathon Limited

Distance: Half Marathon (13.2 Miles)

Beforehand: Ah Swansea, like my second childhood home, having spent a lot of time here as a child with my Grandparents. (By now you may be noting a recent trend of  race reports from familiar venues, stay tuned as we've got a June review of Liverpool Triathlon and an August 5K Swim review in North Wales still to come). Nana and Grandpa  were happy for me to stay with them the night before, as this race gave us all a good reason to hang out a bit beforehand. Also grandparents are great at spoiling you. So I bunked down at there's the night before and feasted on Ham Sandwiches, Mince Pies and a Lasagne, I'd specially shipped in, as I like some pasta the night before a race.



The Route: Despite happening in Wales, this is a fairly flat course, as it hugs the coastline tightly. It begins and ends in the city centre, and in between heads out past the Football ground, University, through Mumbles before flipping back on itself at Verdis in Mumbles. The return leg will  send us through the marina so we hit the 13.2 mile distance.

Due to its flatness and my previous times on hilly course, I'm hoping for a PB of  2hrs 10 Minutes, however I feel like my training has been a bit lackluster recently so we'll see.

Race Day:  I had fitfully slept through the night and was awake nice and early. Grandpa had awoken before me and had made some toast and tea which I gladly ate. I drove into town on the coast road, which was open for traffice into town but closed away as that is where we were to be running. I parked the car in what I'm informed is known as the Iceland carpark, which had this great bit of wall art.

I checked my bag into the luggage check and realised I still had about 40 minutes to wait until the start. So I wandered around a bit and got a free Lucozade Sport.  Once the pens were open I waited around the 2:20 pace marker for go time. I don't remember hearing anyone say we should start moving but soon everyone started moving slowly forward so I went with them.  We passed the starting arch and began a nice pace. Before I knew it we were at the 2 mile mark, I have no idea when we passed the one mile mark. I'd also overtaken the 2.20 pace marker and the 2:10 pace marker by this point. Now the route out into Mumbles whilst seeming flat in the car, had a mild incline throughout. This seemed to be tougher than expected and my speed soon flagged. It was a uneventful trek out to the turning point at Verdi's and the sun was shining nicely. This added a warmer tinge to the day than expected on waking. I was glad I'd chosen a short sleeve top rather than my long sleeved one. 

The return leg continued to be sunny but moved from running on the road to running on the promenade. The incline was now in our favour. I started picking people to try and keep up with. Also at the turning point I was still ahead of the 2:20 pace marker and for the next 4 miles it was a constant battle to stay ahead then fall behind then overtake again. Around mile 10 the 2.20 pack got away from me and I never  caught them again.  The final 3 miles of the run took us round the Marina and for much of this I kept pace with a small party who were all in Pink and were very excited when they overtook a guy in Berlin Marathon top. However I lost them as well. 

As I got to around the 400 metres to go mark, I had slowed to a trudge. At this point another runner, who I only know as Laura, began chatting to me and saying "Now is the time you have to run, at the end, in front of the crowds". Of course this spoke to my show off nature and helped me get back up to pace. So much so that I managed to sprint finish the last 50 metres, which as Laura said afterwards, when we bumped into each other again and I was limping, had not done my legs any good.

Finished and perched on a wall.

So after all that my result was:

Result: 2 hours 20 Minutes and 29 Seconds, so nowhere near a PB 

1st 10k              1hr 5 minutes 2 seconds        Avg. Speed: 9.23kph
2nd 12.2k          1hr 15 minutes 27 seconds   Avg.  Speed: 9.6kph

I'm happy with the increase of speed in the second half of the race but would have like throughout to be quicker.

So what went wrong? I have a few theories/excuses.

1)The Weather was warmer that I expected and this sapped some of my strength
2) My Hubris got the better of me, I started right by the 2:20 pace marker, as in the pen the 2:10 pace marker was quite crowded. So I planned to catch up with the 2.10 pace marker over the course of the race but I got cocky and had overtaken him by mile 2.5. This was a change from my race plan and i then got overtaken again by the 2:10 and the 2.20 pace marker.
3) Change of Morning Diet - I had toast and some free Lucozade Sport that was being handed out before the race.
4) Lacklustre training in past few weeks

It was probably a bit of all of them to be fair but still not a terrible time but I am a bit disappointed.

Pros: Well Organised, Good Atmosphere, Scenic Course

Cons: I  have odd rituals I do on race days, one of which is that I like to tag the mile markers as I go past. I'm not sure if that is to prove to myself I've got there or what. However many of the mile markers were far too high to do that to this time, which was a shame for me but of no consequence to anyone else I'm sure.

Swag:

A Technical Tshirt, a Banana, Some Popcorn, A Medal, Some Fruit Flakes, a bottle of water (Not shown as already drunk) and Waterproofing Rub for Wet Weather Clothes (???)

Blisters? None at all.

Do it again? Yeah I would, although the trip home afterwards seemed to take forever.

What was learnt: Don't get cocky in the early stages of the race, train more in different temperatures.