Our articles are not designed to replace medical advice. If you have an injury we recommend seeing a qualified health professional. To book an appointment with Tom Goom (AKA ‘The Running Physio’) visit our clinic page. We offer both in-person assessments and online consultations.
Today we have a guest blog from runner and fellow blogger Isobel Muir. She’s kindly written us a race write up from the Henfield Half Marathon. Isobel’s own site is well worth a visit and you can follow her on Twitter too – @isobelMHove.
On Sunday (19th August) my running diary contained the words Henfield Half. This may not seem that daunting to those of you like Tom who like nothing better than getting out for a nice marathon but for me, a track girl at heart, it was not the most appealing of entries! Why then had I booked to do it? Alas, I got enthused by my friend Emily who, like Tom, loves the long stuff. This enthusiasm was compounded by my running a decent 10 miler much to my surprise earlier in the year. In fact, it was the post-10 miler excitement that had me filling in the form and sending it off. Now the day had finally arrived I was very much less into the idea. However off I went with Emily.
As my long races seem to coincide with freak weather conditions (Eastbourne half-gale force hail storms, first Bewl 15 – heatwave, second Bewl – major rain and freezingness) I was unsurprised to find the weather forecast for 32-degree heat and blistering sunshine. Luckily this turned out not to be the case in Henfield. Although it was still hot there was cloud cover and even a few miniature thunderstorms with a few drops of rain and a stiff breeze in parts to help cool us down. As I knew this was my last long-distance run for the foreseeable future (I’ve decided to go back to the shorter stuff which I much prefer) I went watchless. The course is off-road and is quite flat but hard work due to the long grasses and rutted underfoot conditions. Thankfully I had a strange phase between 4 and 6 miles where I felt like I was about to faint but didn’t and suddenly I was surprised to see the 7-mile marker having been looking out for the 5! Odd but good to somehow miss 20 minutes or so of running! The route was nice and picturesque through the fields and along the riverbank. There was one exceedingly muddy section that only lasted about 50 metres or so but was on a very narrow, single file, section and at this stage I was at the front of a small group so they had to wait whilst I tried to pick my way through. I would usually tear through at great speed in an attempt to defy the mud’s ankle grabbing but was too knackered to manage this time. Around 11 miles my poor legs stiffened up mightily. I knew this would happen though as I don’t ever run more than 10 miles in training and recently haven’t topped 6! Poor legs. Anyway, I somehow made it to the finish in 1 hour 54 minutes which I was pleased with given the conditions and for a watchless run! I discovered that most people’s times were down by around 10 minutes from their road times and I’ve run my last (and only) two road halves in around 1.48 so I was triply pleased. However, the most pleasure was gained from knowing that I have no plans for anything long EVER AGAIN!!!
