Hi all,

Well, it came and went far too quickly, but I completed my first official Half Marathon yesterday! The 31st annual Burnham Beeches HM, which is two laps around the beautiful and historic Burnham Beeches woodland.  The weather was ideal - not too warm, a nice cool breeze, and occasional showers filtering through the canopy. Marshals and volunteers were really encouraging, as were the few spectators who were dotted around the course.  Special thanks to the man who was stood at the bottom of the steepest hill (around miles 5 and 12) with his two young kids shouting 'Come on Number xxxx, keep going' - just couldn't let them down so pushed on up the hill.  

The first 6 miles absolutely flew by, my Garmin beeped for 10K at 1hr 3mins. Really chuffed with that! Carried on well, powering up the hills and trying not to lean back on the downhill bits.  At around the 9 mile mark, my right knee started to get niggly, then by mile 10 my hip joined in and had to speed-walking big sections of the next 2 miles.  Managed to get going again at the 12 mile marker and slowly ran the lastpart of the course, finishing with a lap of the playing flields at Caldicott school - which was the hardest 400m ever, despite being flat and on grass, because the finish line was in sight but you had to go all the way round to get to it! 

Official chip time is 2hr 27 mins 29 secs - which i am well chuffed with! (My previous HM distance was 2hrs 20, on a mostly flat course)

Nice medal, mars bar, and bottle of water, which to be honest is all you really want after a race!

Stuck around long enough to see Major Turner of 7 Rifles finish in 2:51:00 - having run in army fatigues and boots, and carrying a 50lb rucksack! Quite an achievement!

Then, went home and had a big BBQ and a well earned pint of pimms! :o)

Excellent well done,Ian.This will now become meat and drink to you-you'll probably lose count of the number of H/Ms' you'll go on to do.

Cheers! Definitely a good course, you even start to enjoy the hills in some perverse way! 

Taking a break from distance training for a while, going back to 5Ks for some speed work (my pace has not improved at all this year!). Black park parkrun on Saturday as a baseline, and then see if I can get my time down to 25 mins over the next few months!

Definitely looking to do another HM early next year though!