Langdale, 14th Sept

Both JtY and I were up at the New Dungeon Ghyll today for the Langdale Full and Half Marathon - JtY entered for the full and I for the half. My plan was to do the first three miles with John to keep my pace sensible with a a target of 1:50 to 2 hours in mind. However, John advised that he'd nearly not turned up due to recent ailments and lack of training - I presume that means under rather than over 100mpw. So his target was 4hrs 30.

Started off well at the back, taking over 20 seconds to pass the start line, so that my first mile was 10:41 - a bit slow for a flattish mile when 8:30 to 9:00 average was needed. Anyway threaded my way through and worked on the early climbs and gradually pulled it back to get on target. Still not at all happy with my climbing but in the end  my official time was 1:53:49 which may well be a PW - I think I did something like that when my knee gave way after 9 miles at Bridlington Half, some 19 years ago, but considering the climbs and the fact that I've not done a half marathon for over 10 years, I have to be happy. Also after so many races of counting the numbers behind me on one or two hands (or no hands), to finish 199th of 446 finishers (20th V50 of 36) sounds much more impressive. Shame I couldn't have found an extra 10 minutes improvement as it would have got me 5th V50.

Only 36 minutes behind the first Vet50 but then everyone was at least four minutes behind Paul Muller (so I would still only be 2nd Horwich 52 year old!) Others that we know were Paul Boardman, 26th in 1:32:24 and Andy Stavely, 9th in 1:26:37.

Having finished and found Julie, Diane & her boyfriend, Neal, and got a drink, I went back to the race route so I could cheer John as he approached the end of his first lap. John looked fresh and was well inside a 4:30 schedule but decided to retire as he felt he was struggling and didn't want to damage his preparation for Snowdonia. I'm sure he will be back flying in a few days.