Results tagged “half marathon” from Birmingham Mail - Road Runner

Well done to everybody who completed the half marathon in Birmingham today!
Now, if you're anything like Hannah and I, you are feeling exhausted, slightly sick and you're muscles feel about three times heavier then they did at about 9.29am.

Hannah ran a time of 2 hours 12 mins, roughly what she hoped for, and I ran a time of 2 hours 8 minutes, which was slightly slower than what I was hoping for.

But the aim of the day was to get round the course, raise some cash for charity, and have some fun - so well done to everyone who finished the course.

Our races weren't without incident though.

Hannah was extremely chatty when she finished, bending my ear about what happened during the race while I struggled to breathe.
Then, all of a sudden, she turned as white as a ghost and vomitted in one of the ICC's bins. Classy, my girlfriend.

As for me, I had a great 11 miles and was set to finish in under two hours. But then everything shut down. Totally.

I had pins and needles in my arms and legs, I felt sick and giddy, and I was starting to get tunnel vision. If I had seen a paramedic I would have stopped... but I didn't. Instead I saw someone just as pained as myself and together we limped across the line.

Either someone spiked my water with LSD, or my virus, which I was still recovering from, decided to play a few tricks on me.

Anyone else got any horror stories or funny anecdotes?

One suprising result was my boss finishing in 1 hour 49 minutes. He's 50, quite small, and doesn't look the athletic type. I reckon he took a short cut.

I've got a few more things to say about the organisation of the race. Toilets, the goody bag, the late start and the 11th mile water station are among my gripes. But that's for another blog.

I'm sure Hannah will have something interesting to say too... when she's finished hugging the loo bowl!

Just over 12 hours to go and we are puting the final preparations into place before tomorrow.

Our running kit is washed and clean, we've worked out our route to the start line and we've filled out our next of kin details on our running numbers.

In terms of food we have opted for a meal of spaghetti bolognaise followed by chocolate tart - hopefully there will be enough slow burning carbs in that to see us through the race.

One final tip - the weather forecast for tomorrow is drizzle so make sure you coat yourself in vaseline to stop any chaffing.

Good luck everyone. See you at the start line!

So you've run 20 miles a week for goodness knows how long and it's jsut a few days until the big race.
It's now time for the nitty gritty.

If you haven't already, you will start to worry about what to eat before the race, when to eat, when to drink, what to wear, when to go to the loo, what to do the day before and so on.

But fear not. Here on Road Runner we have drafted in running specialist Paul Robertshaw, who owns Tri-1st, a running shop on Harborne Lane, Harborne.

Here are his top tips. Listen carefully - I will only blog this once...

What is the last thing you want to happen just five days before the big race?

Like everybody else running in next weekend's Birmingham half marathon I have been doing everything I can to avoid an injury.

So far so good - but now I have come down with a full blown cold which is threatening to turn into man flu.

Can I recover in five days or am I going to have to cough and splutter my way round the 13.1 mile course?
To be honest, I have no idea how much effect a cold will have on my performance.
Normally I have quite a laid back attitude to this kind of stuff and just assume that I'll be fine.

But then I spoke to my dad.

"Oooooooooooh! You don't want to do exercise with a cold," he said.
"Tut tut, that's the worst thing you can do."

"But dad, I'm 26, fighting fit and at the peak of my health," I protested.

"Oooooooooh. Well you can do yourself some serious damage if you do the race with a cold," he retorted.

So now I'm worried and trying everything to get rid of my cold, including spending all of this morning in bed.
If it does turn into full blown man flu then I dread to think what will happen to me. Perhaps my lungs will explode while I'm racing?

Keep an eye out for me during the race - I'll be the greeny, purple looking one crawling along the pavement weeping, crying and begging for the pain to end.

I've just been totting up how much this running lark is costing me...and this is just after four weeks!

New running shoes = £45
New MP3 player = £35
New shorts = £5
New running vests = £10
Race fee = £22
10km warm up race fee = £6
New headphones = £20
Total = £136

Finishing the 13.1 miles in one piece.... Priceless

Today marked the end of our fourth week of training... and to celebrate we ran for 90 minutes non stop!

Hannah managed 7.91 miles at an average of 11.3 minutes per mile.
This was the same as running at 5.2 miles per hour.
From our very basic calculations this means Hannah would be able to run the half marathon in 2 hours and 28 minutes if she did it tomorrow.

Paul ran 10.26 miles at an average of 8.7 minutes per mile.
This was the same as running 6.8 miles per hour.
His projected half marathon time, if he ran it tomorrow, is 1 hour and 54 minutes.

How did we work all this out? Go to www.walkjogrun.co.uk and create your own running route near where you live by using the map. It's easy and gives you loads of interesting stats.

If you are considering training while on holiday in a sunny seaside resort this summer then I advise you to learn from my painful mistake.

Yes, running in the sun is hot work.
Yes, a dip in the sea straight afterwards sounds like a great idea.

But no, not under any circumstances is it clever to do your training in swimming shorts.

Why? Because an hour of synthetic waterproof material rubbing against bare human flesh is a recipe for the worst chafing imaginable to man.

The cool sea water soothes this temporarily, but as soon as you try and walk the pain begins.

Be brave, ignore this advice, but waddling on the beach is not a good look -believe me, I've been there.

We've been away in Wales this week and thought it would be a good idea to continue our training by running along the picturesque Pembrokeshire coast.

It turns out this was not the brightest idea we have ever had.

After our first 55 minute run on Whitesands beach we both got sunburnt on every patch of bare skin the sun could get its rays on.
Face, neck, arms, shoulders, back of knees, calves - the whole lot.

This isn't a major problem unless, like us, you are staying in a tiny cut-price tent where there is no room to swing a cat.
After three nights of tip-toeing around each others' burnt patches we finally came to the end of our tether and came home.

But not before the crows had attacked our tent... but that's another story.

I tried to run 7km in my 35 minute run yesterday, and although I nearly passed out at the end, I managed it.

Now if I can do that three times in a row then I am in line to do the half-marathon in 1 hour 45 minutes. Easy really.

But the really big mistake came after my run.

Er, we've just noticed that our blog says we are running a whole marathon - No way Jose!

It's only the 13.5 miles we are doing. Any more and I'll probably never recover.

To update, we're now in our third week of running and I'm:

1. bored
2. tired all the time
3. hungry most of the time
4, hurting in my legs
5. feeling guilty that I haven't raised any sponsorship money yet.

Right - time to go home to do a 50 minute run in the rain. Why am I doing this again?