Hi Ele,

I'm building up my experience as I took up running about 16 months ago and only started racing this March, and yes I'm in the Birmingham Half which will be my second ever HM which looking from my stats I think will suit me as there seems to be one or two decent hills especially the one at the end, also it should be cooler than the Coventry one which was the hottest day of the year.

Thanks for that Jonathan for confirming my targets, I think I may consider a full marathon probably around September next year once the summer league is over as we tend to race every two weeks from April through to August which may hamper somewhat the training schedule.

Hi Derek

I would say those are realistic targets.

I am a similar age bracket to you and your 10K time is a couple of minutes faster than mine.

My best half marathon is 1.38.57 and marathon 3.51.41, so you should be able to achieve your targets or possibly slightly quicker. My half marathon times suggest I should be able to run the marathon quicker but I haven't managed to avoid slowing down towards the end yet! For me the half to full multiplier is too optimistic so far and I siuspect that is true for a lot of people.

But it all depends if you are better at short or long distances of course.

Good luck

It's been a bit quiet on this forum over the last couple of days, either you are all busy or have gone on hols.

Anyway I thought I would share with you my penultimate summer league club run that I done last night which was a 12k multi terrain around Kingsbury Water Park. I targeted my pace at 7:15 min/mile and managed to acheive a 7.07 m/mile and finished the 12k (plus what I think was a little bit more) in 54:22, well chuffed at that as anything under 55 mins was good going.

As I have mentioned before my newish Addidas trail shoes have caused me blood blisters under race conditions so I wore my Reebok Verona's that I normally use for winter. I did get a slight water blister in a different place that I know these shoes cause me but a lot less severe than the Addidas.

One last club run in two weeks which is a 10k road run, then I've yet to suss out the cross country scene and whether or not there is a league set up for that. Also while I was there one of the runners suggested I go for the track events as they are short of vets 50 - 60, H'mmm, might be a consideration but I do find it a little boring running around a track even though I'm there every Monday purely for speedwork only.

Looking at next year now and thinking about competing in a full marathon, I'm doing my 2nd half marathon this year in October, it's a bit of a step up but I think it's do able as I'm already a 40 mile a weeker and I am building up my weekly long run for October and currently at 13 miles easy pace. Hoping to complete the HM in 1:40 or under, a full marathon looking at 3:45 or below.

What do you think?