Review of the Wilmslow Half Marathon

June 28, 2018

Review of the Wilmslow Half Marathon - 24th June 2018

I got married last weekend. Which meant that I was very close to not bothering with this race. The wedding celebrations you see continued into the next week – cinema trips, eating out, feeding sharks, spending time at the spa, shopping… as well as drinking plenty of alcohol and eating copious amounts of cake. Never before have I been so naughty in the week leading up to a race, which is a shame really because the training before my wedding had gone really well. But c’est la vie!

I was relatively good the night before the race. No alcohol, but I did eat cake! I also drank lots and lots of water. The weather forecast was looking warm. One of my runners from the #MileShyClub, Mark, was running his first ever half marathon after only starting his running journey 8 months ago, so I knew that quitting wasn’t an option. Mark kindly arranged to pick me up at 8.30am, which I was pleased about, because if I hadn’t had someone knocking at my front door, I might very well have accidentally slept in…

We both had similar goals in mind – complete the race in under 2 hours. We had done lots of training and our long runs showed we were more than capable of this. That said, with my wedding, and also Mark’s 30^th the day after that, we had both hardly trained in the week and a half before the real “big day”. The Wilmslow half is one of those races I’ve always wanted to do – the running community reviews say it is an easy, fast, flat course around the leafy Cheshire countryside… sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

It was hell.

Mark swears I am jinxed. After running the hottest ever London marathon and a ridiculously hot Manchester 10k, it seemed almost a requirement to do the triple and get a hot half marathon in there. And boy was it hot. On top of that, my Garmin watch (vivoactive HR) which tracks everything from whether I am sleeping properly, to my perfect race pace, finally gave up the ghost and died on me the day before. Despite some of my lovely runners from the #MileShyClub offering to lend me their watches, I decided to decline their kind offers and just “go with it”. I told myself it was sort of an experiment to see what happens without gadgets, a fun way to run and look out for the mile markers instead.

Oh how naïve I was.

Before the race start, I did a warm up to stretch out my muscles and a few squats to engage my glutes. My calves were very, very tight so I made sure to stretch them out properly, and I also did some mobilising stretches on my injured ankle, which if I am being totally honest is not 100% better (I’d say 85%!) This half marathon is supposed to be my last endurance race (races of 13 miles upwards) this year so that I can allow my ankle to fully heal properly.

At the start, I kept looking at the white patch on my wrist, even touching it, expecting to find the calm reassurance of my Garmin, but the arm was empty. I supped on an energy gel – I had planned to take two with me, but after my warm up, they felt cumbersome in the pockets of my shorts so I took one before the race started.

With Mark next to me, I plugged in my little mp3 and then we were off!

I remembered Mark’s words to me at the start. His plan was to follow me until mile 10, then he was going to simply, in his words, “bomb it past me” to the finish. Truth is, I fully expected him to do this, and warned him that I might likely swear at him if he gave me the finger at that stage in the race. I already had my complimentary image ready for Facebook to show everyone afterwards:

And a youtube clip:

There was some blessed tree cover along the route which gave shade at various points of the race, but even by half a mile in, I knew it was going to be hard. The sun was relentless, despite the forecast saying it would be sunny AND cloudy, there was not one of those blinking white things in the sky for miles. I was wearing my London marathon cap that had treated me so well in that race in April to keep the sun out my eyes but even that felt heavy on my head.

It was a crowded start and Mark and I kept losing each other. I started out strong, carefully weaving past other runners and being careful not to use up too much energy. My warm up had given me the advantage and I knew that Mark was behind me.

“JANE JANE JANE SLOOOOOOW DOWWWWN!”

Suddenly Mark appeared and started pointing to his garmin.

“YOU’RE DOING UNDER AN 8 MINUTE MILE!!!” he yelled.

“Crikey!” I shouted back. I slowed my pace. Even I knew that going out that fast was not sensible.

Mark then caught me up (and as I write this I wonder was that his game all along?!!!!). We ran next to each other and I was pleased to see him doing so well.

“Don’t you dare wait for me,” I told him, knowing he was capable of beating me.

“I’m ok,” he said, and with that, I watched him jog ahead.

It was great really to see him go way ahead. I’ve always been a competitive runner, but I knew that the day would come as a coach when my runners surpassed me, and how unfair would it be if I didn’t give them the motivation to be the best they can be?

There were a few hills I wasn’t expecting on the course and I kind of did a health check as I took them on. People overtook me going up hills and I caught them back on the way back down. Truth be told, I have done hardly any other training in the last few months apart from running and it shows. I just didn’t feel particularly strong in myself, in my stride, in my muscles, and I can’t wait to get back into the gym. I found a fairly comfortable running rhythm and stuck with it.

About 3 miles in, I spotted Mark again! He was standing on top of a hill, waiting for me!

“WHAT ARE DOING?!!!!” I yelled. “GO GO GOOOOO!”

Mark shook his head. “I need to slow down. I’ve gone out too fast”

Mark joined me at my steady pace and we chatted when we could, which wasn’t all the time as we were finding it hard. Again, Mark ended up running ahead and I watched his illuminous yellow #MileShyClub top disappear into the distance.

Water was promised at mile 3, or so I thought, so from mile 3 to approximately 3.7 miles I was thinking of all ways to write a letter of complaint to the race organisers (I wouldn’t ever promise!) about their miscalculation of the water station locations (they were right by the way, I was wrong).

Cute scouts with their scout leaders were doing an awesome job of manning the water station and one of the kids held out a glorious bottle of water ready for me to take.

Just as I reached out to grab it, the kid CHANGED HIS MIND and said,

“URRRRRGH! Look! It’s got blood on it!”

He turned the bottle back towards his Scout Leader who thankfully appreciated that I was about to launch myself over the table after the bottle, and quickly ensured I had another in my hand. It probably took about a millisecond for that exchange to take place but at the time it felt like FOREVER.

Following the rules of the London marathon, I sipped what water I needed, put some on my wrists, then over my head. Then suddenly I saw Mark again!

“Come on!” I yelled! I splurged some of my water on him.

We passed mile 4. Mark started to walk.

“You go on,” he told me.

I didn’t know what to say. I had envisaged Mark beating me in the race. In an attempt to keep it light, I splurged him with my remaining water then threw my water bottle (gently) at him which made him laugh. Then a random runner sprayed me with water and it was like a little water fight was taking place, despite us not even being a third of the way through.

“Okay,” I said, and I waved out my arm bye to him. I wondered if this was race tactics and whether he was walking so as not to make me feel bad for being what I felt was slow. Or perhaps he was planning to stay behind me all along and push past me at the finish line. Either way I knew if I started walking at mile 4, I wouldn’t finish in under 2 hours.

I couldn’t believe there was so far to go. I kept thinking of the race in how many miles left, and mile 4 meant single figures ie. 9 miles to go. But even 9 miles seemed incredibly hard to do in the heat.

The hot asphalt was not kind to my feet. The soles of my feet burned. Mark kept reappearing. He would run past me, faster than I was going, then walk a little, which was when I’d catch up. It felt like at times I was just treading water, I felt like I was running so slowly, with no real power underneath me.

Heaven-sent spectators from the surrounding houses took pity on us poor souls and sprayed us with hose pipes. The water was so cold it took my breath away. At one point in the race there was a hose pipe to the left and one immediately on the right. All I could hear was my laboured voice going “HUUURRR!!!” as the coldness took my breath away. Twice!

We got moved to the side three times during the race to make way for ambulances. People were dropping like flies due to the heat, and little kids waiting with adults spectating on the sides looked red, sweaty and fed up. The Wilmslow half-marathon has sadly had two fatalities in recent years, but happily to date there have been no reports of this happening this year. The marshals all throughout the race were super enthusiastic and wonderfully kitted out in luminous yellow!

My body was hurting. After my burning feet, my shoulders hurt the most, with my legs feeling relatively fine. My boobs were driving me nuts. After asking my husband (yeah!) to help me pack them into my sports bra in the morning, they just felt heavy and arduous and b*oody inconvenient.

The second water station was close to mile 7 and I took two paper cups of water – one to drink and one to tip over my head. I swallowed it quickly and immediately felt sick.

Relentless, the sun seared into my head, but I knew that mile 9 wasn’t too far away. Mile 9 meant that there was only a mere 4 miles to go, some of which was downhill to the glorious finish. I focused hard on getting to that point, keeping an eye out for the marker. And then there it was!

Clearly, the sun had got the better of me and I was confused. Then, out the corner of my eye, two runners up ahead wearing the 2 hour t-shirt markers ran past and I realised that the sub-2 hour half marathon was over, not just for me, but for Mark too.

For the first time ever in a half marathon, I started to walk. I effectively gave up at this point. Mark re-joined me, and we jogged along together, joking that perhaps going to the pub would have been a better option. A woman who recognised our #MileShyClub t-shirts started cheering us on which really perked us up and got us to mile 9. Another lovely spectator was handing out ice. I took 3 pieces and handed one to Mark who declined. The first piece went into my mouth, the second on top of my head under my cap and the third down my sports bra (which felt great!)

Approaching mile 9.5 I realised that I had lost Mark again. We came off the road onto a rocky(ish) path and I tried to quell the panic rising up in me. Exhausted and struggling with the heat, I was terrified of falling over on my dodgy ankle.

At mile 10, I looked for Mark. I ran backwards a little to see if I could see him. Everyone looked as haggard as me, but there was no sign of Mark. I half expected him to jump out of a bush and race past me.

I had it in my head that the next water station was at mile 11.5, but thankfully it reared its beautiful head not far from 10 miles and I happily totted up my fluids. I also treated myself to the gel I had been carrying all this way and that combined with the water gave me a second wind to mile 11.

The last two miles were horrific. We passed portaloos and I wanted to tell Mark that they were there for him to use as he had needed to go but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I did what I could only do which was to put my music in my ears and try and blot out the heat. The song ‘Faith’ came on and I kid you not, I sang the entire thing from start to finish for half a mile, not caring at all what any of the other runners thought. The thing is, it was the Limp Bizkit version of ‘Faith’ which really felt appropriate at the time, but I did whisper the swearing bits. With its upbeat, faster version of the song, everyone must have thought I’d lost the plot. I had.

I swiped some jelly babies from a spectator and after passing mile 12, got chatting to a guy I called ‘Ginger Guy’. My first question was whether he was wearing suncream (he was) and then I spoke to him about his charity top – running for MIND. He had raised £250 for the charity and this was his first half marathon, so I gave him the kick he needed and he got moving again. Just like with Mark, we kept passing each other as one of us ran and the other walked.

I chatted with another lady who had also run the London marathon like me, and like me, felt it was bad luck to have two races in excruciating heat. I then saw another female runner who was tall and blonde like me and I tapped her on the shoulder and told her to keep going. There was a guy with long straight grey hair called Peter and a guy from ‘Walk2Run Blackley’ running with his friends. One female runner kept looking back at me and I am sure she thought she knew me so I made it my mission to just try and get past her.

I knew there was a hill on the last mile because everyone tells you about it, but it was just like the other few hills in the race. I later spoke to Mark about that final hill and how I refused to let it beat me, and we had both thought the same thing and taken it on to the grisly bitter end, determined to not stop running on it.

I started swearing at the end, asking myself where the f***ing finish line was because I couldn’t see it. A spectator told us it was just round the corner (spectators have no idea how much power they possess when divulging information of this nature to weary runners).

Then suddenly, it was there, dark blue against bright blue sky and I willed myself toward it. Numbers were ticking on the timer next to it and I strained my head. I could just about make out a ‘9’ and I reasoned that I was coming in around the 2 hours 19 minutes mark. Imagine my surprise when I saw the numbers 2 hours 11 minutes glaring at me.

“No way!” I yelled.

I found a second strength here, as I usually do at the end of races.

“COME ON LEGS!”

My face squished up as I willed myself to push on and like a powerful car motor, my glutes engaged and a rush of power came from nowhere and I raced to the bitter end, determined not to let the clock get to 2 hours 12 minutes (coincidentally my first ever half marathon time).

Finishing felt great, albeit it was tainted by the fact I was still outside in the blistering sunshine. I grabbed my goody bag and went to find water, further along the finish tunnel. Finding a shaded spot, I waited for Mark, willing him to finish and hoping against hope he wasn’t one of the injured. Thankfully, I soon saw him.

“Well that was hard,” he said, coming in for a hug. Mark is not a hugger, and has never hugged me before, so that gesture spoke volumes.

I congratulated him on his first half marathon (yeah!) and assured him his next wouldn’t be as hard. After a quick photo, we rushed home to watch the rest of the England game, quietly confident that like in the past, the team wouldn’t start to score goals until the second half. We were wrong.

At home, I took off my sodden clothes and had (I can’t say “jumped into”) a shower. I then moved to the sofa, where I stayed throughout the rest of the England game and for a good hour after, despite the postman bringing me a lovely new Garmin watch which I couldn’t face opening. Concerned, my husband (yeah!) even accompanied me on a trip to the shops to do the weekly food shop. My right shoulder was murder, really, really sore, which I have put down to not swimming at all this year. I couldn’t even hold a shopping basket.

Back at home, I then realised that sunburn was developing on my shoulders. Stupidly, I had put sun cream on my face, but not my shoulders and I paid for it. Covering myself in aloe vera gel, I lay down on the bed waiting for it to sink it… and fell asleep for 2 hours.

I will be back to this race, in the hopefully cooler climes of the usual March race date. I have unfinished business with this one. Super organised race, and well worth a trip back.