Bristol Half Marathon

Before I forget, I’d like to start this race report by saying what a fantastically well organised race the Bristol Half Marathon is.  The larger half marathons generally have to be due to the number of runners involved, road closures, etc.  But Bristol stands out for me for a few reasons.  Firstly because apart from London and all of the “Great Run” events, I can’t think of another race in the UK which offers the same level of race support to leading British athletes.  Some (not all) of the big races offer a free race entry to faster runners.  But there’s not many that offer hotel accommodation with a pre-race briefing and meal the night before, plus a very generous prize structure – both overall and for British athletes.  Nick Anderson and Bud Baldaro walked all of the athletes down to the start on race day and we were taken to our own designated area where we had bag storage, Lucozade, water and our own toilets.  I understand that the Bristol 10k offers a similar level of support.  So thanks to all of the organisers, to Bud and to Nick who made everyone so welcome and took a lot of the usual pre-race hassle away and left us to think about the race and the race only.  I would encourage any athlete interested in doing a good 10k or half next year to make contact with Bud in advance of the race to enquire about the races.  I often hear British athletes complaining there needs to be more races with better support and generous prize funds so let’s support the ones that do just that!

Race day...and it’s an early start.  I think 9am is the earliest I have ever started a race.  As you may know from my training logs so far, I always do 2-3 miles before breakfast on race day.  I find it especially important for the early starts as it wakes the body up and tricks the body into thinking it’s not really 9am and the body does want to run fast!  But I think starting the “pre-race loosener” at 5:27am is a record.  Going out at this time had extra comedy value as I ran through the city centre and encountered the dregs from Saturday night in Bristol – the drunken idiots who just don’t want the night to end and insist on roaming the streets and behaving like prats.  One idiot decided to run alongside me offering me a fight so I responded by saying I always knew Southerners couldnt handle their drink and running alongside me turned into a chase with five of his mates joining in!  I thought it best at this point to bin the planned out and back route and was confident I could loop back but when I reached 4 miles I thought that was too much already and walked the rest of the way – another 20mins. 

In years gone by I’d have got really wound up by this and how it might affect me but I was quick to laugh it off and brush it under the carpet and channel all my focus into the race.  7:45am quickly came around and we were ushered down to our designated area.  After a slow 2 mile jog with Steve Way, I changed into my race kit and did some strides.  By now it was drizzling and the wind had picked up from non-existent to being quite significant.  Bumped into Alan Storey at the very last minute who seemed to confuse me with my brother by asking “Mr Norman, so how many weeks training have you done this time”.  Good to see Alan, such a shame he isn’t visibly involved in the sport any more.

The race started quite steadily it seemed for the first half mile, with everybody finding their rhythm.  The second half mile seemed a bit quicker and as we passed the first mile bang on 5:00, Dave Mitchinson said “that felt faster than 5:00”.  Mile 2 was also exactly 5:00.  A few of us had talked beforehand about forming a group aiming for 5:00 for every mile so this was absolutely perfect.  After 2 miles, the Garmin started beeping a little bit before each marker so the splits I have recorded are from the watch, however we passed the 5 mile marker in 25:00 and it was looking very promising indeed.  There were 11 of us in total with myself, Steve Way, Paul Marteletti, Ben Jones, Kairn Stone, Kevin Skinner, Dave Mitchinson, Sam Farah, Hywel Care, Tom Payn and Anuradha Cooray.  When you’ve got a group that size, chances are that somebody in the group will always be feeling good so if the pace slackens, somebody will move to the front.  I was never that person feeling good unfortunately.  I felt heavy legged from the word go and at 5 miles, I was seriously contemplating stopping at 8 miles and writing it off as a tempo run.  I always say never drop out of a race unless you’re going to do damage to yourself and with the marathon looming, I guess I’m being overly cautious thinking like that.  Come 8 miles, I was feeling a bit better and had a bit of a stint at the head of the group into a wind which had seen us lose a bit of time to our schedule over the last 3 miles.  People had fallen off the pace and 11 had now become 7.  And as we approached 10 miles, 7 became 3 as Paul took the pace back down to 5:00 per mile and myself and Kev were the only ones able to respond.

The next moment of significance was approaching 11 miles when Tomas Abyu came into our line of vision.  Myself and Kev didn’t say anything to each other, but we both knew that Tomas was the 3^rd Brit.  This inspired us both a lot and as we got closer to him, we started to test each other out quite seriously.  If you asked me to name the athlete I have the most head to head battles with, it would be Kevin Skinner.  Last summer we were separated by less than 2 seconds over 3000m, 5000m and 10000m races with varying outcomes!  As Abyu got closer and closer, one would push hard, the other would push even harder.  Paul verbally conceded to both of us and basically me and Kev spent the last mile and a bit hammering the hell out of one another.  This is reflected in the splits (see below).

Tomas was suffering but managed to hold Kev off by 2secs and me by a further 2secs.  I’d crossed the line in 8^th place – 5^th Brit in a high quality field but so close to 6^th place and 3^rd Brit.  The general concensus is that times were way down and yet I’d run my fastest half marathon for 6 years!  I feel I acquitted myself really well despite not feeling good and it’s a boost ahead of Toronto to have had a decent run out.  It’s by no means a startling time but it’s a good performance against good opposition and a fair reflection of where I’m at in my training at the moment.

Garmin splits: 5:00, 5:00, 5:02, 4:51, 5:01, 5:06, 5:01, 5:07, 5:11, 5:09, 5:02, 5:00, 4:51, (4:49)

Results:

  1  Edwin Kipyego   01:03:08 
  2  Shiferaw Tewodros  01:04:36 
  3  Andy Vernon  01:04:43
  4  Moumin Gala  01:05:05 
  5  Antony Ford  01:05:20
  6  Tomas Abyu  01:06:26
  7  Kevin Skinner  01:06:28 
  8  Dave Norman  01:06:30
  9  Paul Martelletti  01:06:34
10  Dave Mitchinson  01:06:55
11  Kairn Stone  01:06:56 
12  Steven Way  01:07:00
13  Benjamin Jones  01:07:28
14  Anuradha Cooray  01:07:36
15  Kevin Heywood  01:07:41
16  Thomas Payn  01:08:22
17  Dave Archer  01:08:37
18  Paul Rodgers  01:08:49 
19  Samatar Farah  01:09:00 
20  John Hutchins  01:09:07
21  Hywel Care  01:09:28  
22  Ben Gamble  01:09:29
23  Stuart Robinson  01:09:48  
24  Mark Jenkin  01:09:53
25  Nigel Stirk  01:10:09