Tag: Races

(RunThrough, who organise the event, like to call this one the ‘Newcastle Half Marathon’, which is the worst name in the world given that (a) it’s 95% out in the countryside and (b) there’s already a much much much more famous half marathon that starts in Newcastle. I will call it what everyone in the local area actually calls it, which is the Kingston Park half.)

I wasn’t expecting much going into this race. Training has been near-nonexistent the last few weeks for reasons I won’t go into, and like most people, I don’t run well in the heat. It was nowhere near as hot today as it has been in recent weeks, and certainly not as hot as it is down south, but 18 degrees at 9am is still too warm for an ideal running performance and we most definitely felt it out there on the unshaded asphalt. So, excuses in early, let’s go.

The 10k and half marathon runners start together, self-seeding by appropriate pace. The first three miles leading up to the 10k turnaround point (or at least the last mile or so of that stretch once the fast lads start coming back the other way) are actually interesting, as you can watch out for 10k runners you know (although in my case today that was Geth and Geth only, as all the other 10k runners I knew were behind me). After the 10kers left us it was a bit lonelier – just a few quiet half marathoners around me as we plodded further up the road and around the midway lollipop section. Still, I prefer that to over-congestion like we had in Toronto.

As I had decided very early on that it was far too hot for any heroics and I just needed to keep it steady and consistent, I genuinely really enjoyed most of the running. The only big issue I had was that when I grabbed my nutrition flask of Tailwind for the second time at mile six, I found it had emptied itself (this is a longstanding problem that I now accept will have to be solved by purchasing new flasks), and so I was completely reliant on the water stations for the rest of the race – not ideal on a hot day, and of course it also meant I wasn’t taking in the usual planned calories. Another issue was some bad road texture around mile nine that meant I could feel every painful spot and developing blister through my carbons, but in general there wasn’t much to complain about on this course – even the promised hills weren’t that noticeable. Strangely, even though I was a bit slower, I found the race was absolutely flying by compared to the last half I did in Toronto.

That all ended at mile twelve. Mile twelve was the most brutal mile twelve I have ever experienced in a half marathon. It felt like it took longer to run than the whole of the eleven miles leading up to it! It was just so long and empty and unshaded and the heat was getting hotter and all my late-race energy that had surprised me during miles ten and eleven had just dissipated.

Mile thirteen was okay again though. I knew from a glance at the watch that sub-2 was off the table so I didn’t bother stepping it up – just cruised in and was surprised by the finish line arriving quicker than expected.

So no season’s best today, for a few reasons. I am still proud of a steady and consistent performance given the circumstances 🎉

Some takeaways:

• While I’m not ruling out summer races forever because they do have a lovely atmosphere about them, I might give them a miss again next year.
• I can’t wait to get started on my next training block, which will contain two B races leading up to my autumn A race at Chester Metric Marathon. It starts tomorrow with day 1 of a recovery week, and then I can start building up from week 2. I’ll be doing a few things differently this time, such as lots of steady pace runs, hill sessions and summer runexploring.
• Other than the stupid flask, I do feel I’ve cracked the nutrition-related nausea issue I was having last year. I’ll keep an eye on things as I build up (hopefully) towards a spring marathon in 2027.
• I feel the 1:50 half goal is too ambitious for my one remaining half this year (the GNR), especially as that’s now a B race, and so I’ll likely be targeting a return to 1:55ish instead. As such, the aforementioned spring marathon may not be a sub-4 attempt (if you’ve been following along, you’ll remember the sub-4 marathon is my primary long-term goal) but instead a sub-4:05 or sub-4:10 attempt as a stepping stone along the way. This decision will largely depend on what happens at Chester, where my goal is to maintain sub-4 marathon pace (9ish min miles) for the whole 16 miles.

Next B race is in three weeks’ time, where I’m all but guaranteed a PB due to not having raced the distance since 2018… but you never know, so I can’t be complacent! Lots of work to do, but it’s fun work.

A fortnight after the Toronto half, this was definitely not a goal race. Half and metric marathon are my targeted distances for 2026 and any 10ks I race are for fun. This one was a lot of fun!

It was the tenth anniversary of my first 10k race, completed at this event in 2016, so I was in a celebratory mood. It’s been a long time since I felt so relaxed and pressure-free before a race, and we had a lovely metro ride down to Sunderland with a big group of Benchies who were all doing the event.

The bag drop was in a different place this year, but still not very secure as there’s nobody checking bag tags against numbers when you leave. We did hear after the race that one lady had her bag go missing with her car keys in it, most likely because someone else had taken it by mistake. Just one volunteer doing a check at the door would avoid this!

Caffeine gel and a few stretches before the gun and we were soon away. Sunderland is always a fast start (especially if you find yourself up the front with the fast lads like we did – my chip was only seven seconds after the gun today 😐) so it took a mile or so to settle, but after that it was very enjoyable. I’ve been doing this route most years for a decade now and I know it really well, so it goes quickly. The surprising speed of the km markers ticking over is one of the bonuses of running in miles!

I kept a decent effort up and only really felt myself properly tiring in the last mile or so, at which point I was able to tell myself to keep it up because I was nearly done. I crossed the line in 52:50, which is a little slower than last year’s 10k results but respectable for where I am at the moment.

I had my t-shirt from 2016 ready to change into after the race to go with my 2026 medal! (Sunderland sell t-shirts separately to the race entry nowadays and as I have too many t-shirts already I don’t bother getting them, but it was nice to bookend my souvenirs today.)

Fuelling bonus: my caffeine gel (Kendal Mint citrus) didn’t make me feel sick today. I still wouldn’t trust it as a start line gel for a longer race, but for a 10k it’s good.

That’s the end of my recovery fortnight and tomorrow a new eight-week block begins for my next half (although it’ll just be a streak saver mile and a gentle walk on day 1!). Looking forward to getting into some decent training.

I had known about Toronto Marathon (and its sub-distance races) for a few years. It’s internationally notorious for being chaotic at best – I’ve seen runners from Toronto online saying they consider the Toronto Waterfront Marathon (held in the autumn) to be the ‘real’ Toronto Marathon – so I didn’t want to risk entering the full distance at this event, as marathons are hard enough without dealing with bad race organisation. However, I was keen to do one of the shorter races to see for myself what the event was like, and as Geth and I were planning a visit to Toronto this spring anyway (as part of his work during his sabbatical and also to see our new baby niece along with the rest of the family), I made sure the dates lined up.

A week and a half of away-from-home eating in the run-up to the race meant that preparation was not ideal, but I was still confident that I’d do quite a bit better than my last half marathon attempt at Middlesbrough two months previously. For a start, I had actually been able to train this time round, even though my mileage wasn’t quite back where I wanted it yet and I was spending two days a week cross-training on the bike rather than doing the kind of runs I normally would.

I didn’t want to leave anything too vital in my drop bag, so race morning found me padding through the streets of downtown Toronto in my Vaporflys with my running sunglasses on despite the fact that the sun had yet to rise. A line of yellow school buses were waiting to take us to the start (my first time on a yellow school bus!) and it was a fairly calm and straightforward journey despite the cold and the potholes.

The bag drop (supervised by a very efficient British volunteer) was easy to find when we arrived at the start. I had planned to leave dropping my bag for as long as I could due to the cold – I was very reluctant to remove my hoodie! – but I soon realised that there was a nice warm indoor space where runners were congregating, so I got my bag on the truck and my foil blanket on myself and settled down in the nearby mini-mall for an hour.

The start line was the first problematic bit. The volunteers wouldn’t let us into our pre-arranged corrals as they were already full! This meant having to cram in further back and get as far forward as I could, but there came a point where I couldn’t move any more as it was too crowded.

We were allowed to start ten minutes after the first corral, which I did appreciate, as the website had originally said 20 minutes. Due to the crowds and being further back than I should have been, I spent the first half of the race weaving and overtaking people. I did feel pretty strong at this point, but it would have been nice to have a clearer run.

The only real inclines were in the first few miles so it was great to get them out of the way. Most of the route was downhill, to the extent that I was really grateful for all the work I’d done on the bike during training as I don’t think my quads would have coped so well otherwise!

It was really interesting to see Toronto become more ‘downtown’ as we ran south. The skyscrapers became denser and the crowds became bigger. The vibe was great and it really felt like a proper big city race.

At this point (around halfway) we were starting to run into the back of the marathoners (who had started an hour before us and were doing a similar route but with lots of extra nooks and crannies to make up the miles), so the congestion never really eased at any point!

The atmosphere at halfway was amazing – we were properly into the city centre now and the crowds had really made an effort. My favourite sign was ‘May the Course Be With You’ – a good one for the day before Star Wars Day 😀

I did feel myself slowing down quite a bit around miles eight to twelve, and found that I was starting to be overtaken rather than overtaking. I was having a lot of aches and pains: my lower back had seized up a bit and my soleus was really aching (something I hadn’t experienced since Manchester Marathon a couple of years ago). At this point, though, I’d broken the back of it and was just counting down the miles. I do need to work on avoiding that fade and achieving a steadier run.

I glanced at my watch when it buzzed for mile twelve. 1:49 on the clock and I’d only slowed to ten-minute miles, so I knew if I stepped it up a bit I could sneak in under two hours even with the expected GPS extra bit. I put the effort in and kept my eyes ahead. The finish straight was confusing, because the marathoners were sent off to the left and the half marathoners straight ahead into the finish… but where was it? Watch was ticking over, 1:59:00, 1:59:30, 1:59:38, and I was panicking because it still wasn’t there. All I could do was run as fast as I could and hope. But then we rounded a corner and it was right in front of us, and I sprinted. 1:59:45 over the line. Still more than four minutes slower than my PB, but a sub-2 and nearly ten minutes faster than Middlesbrough so I’ll take it!

The finish area was mad. We spent about 20 minutes moving extremely slowly through a finish funnel and at one point were handed tiny cups of water. Then we emerged into a giant crowd of people moving in all directions – it was impossible to tell which way you were supposed to go – and in this giant crowd we had to FIND the medal-givers like an insane real-life game of Where’s Wally. They even had the bright red t-shirts on!

The medal was GIGANTIC.

After that, weighed down by this dinner plate of a medal, we had to fight our way into the race goodies area, which was full of people going absolutely feral trying to get as many protein drinks and bars as they could get away with, and volunteers yelling at people for being in the wrong banana queue. Having run this gauntlet I finally encountered a volunteer (another Brit) who was pointing people towards bag collection. I’d been in the finish ‘system’ for long enough that I was getting pretty cold, so I was glad to be reunited with my hoodie.

I hadn’t collected absolutely all of the snacks I was entitled to in the Hunger Games arena, but at that point I just wanted out of there, so I followed the crowd in the hope of finding an exit. It took another ten minutes or so to get through said exit, but I could see Geth waving at me and eventually I managed to get to him (and the extra hoodie and non-carbon shoes he’d brought for me). He was a bit jealous of the enormous half marathon (and marathon) medals, as he’d done the 10k and they got a normal-sized one.

(I was amused at that point that we were congratulated by another half marathon runner who had clocked Geth’s Manchester Marathon hoodie – apparently Manchester was on his bucket list because he was a Man Utd (or was it Man City?) supporter. Lots of Premier League fans in Canada!)

The crowds around the finish were still huge and it took a while to find Mum and Dad, but it was nice to catch up for a bit before they headed off for another day of Toronto adventures and we headed back to our hotel to recover. It would have been nice to grab a coffee nearby, but all the coffee shops were absolutely rammed post-race!

While I can’t say I ‘recommend’ this event exactly, it does have a great crowd vibe and a nice downhill course. Just be prepared for chaos from the start (we woke up on race morning to find the race website had crashed – thankfully I had already retrieved all the information I needed for the day!) and manage expectations accordingly.

I’ve taken a fortnight’s break from strict training (and will be running a 10k race this Sunday for a fun morning out and to see roughly where I am) but will be back on it from Monday for another eight weeks leading up to the next half marathon attempt!

I was happy with this race given the last couple of months.

The aim of this one was always to see where I was after a winter of non-specific baseline training, as my main aim for 2026 is to make big improvements in my half marathon time. What I didn’t expect was that I wouldn’t really have that winter of baseline training, as I had to reduce my mileage drastically in January and February in order to sort out a hamstring/glute niggle. As such, while I might have expected to scrape a sub-2 on normal mileage, I thought this week that I would probably end up somewhere between 2:05 and 2:10 – and that was pretty much bang on. Due to the lack of training I knew I had to stick to a steady effort with no heroics, so I’m really pleased with how the race went.

I felt at the start like I didn’t know anyone (Middlesbrough is a bit further south than I usually venture for ‘local’ races) but it was nice to spot a few people I knew during the race and say hi.

The last few miles were a bit tough, but that’s to be expected given that I’ve not run more than 10 miles at a time since Amsterdam Marathon in October!

The hamstring twinged on occasion, but 99% of the time I didn’t notice it. Hopefully it’ll be manageable from now on.

I also didn’t feel sick 🎉🎉🎉 I was a bit crampy on occasion but no nausea. My start line gel was Active Root non-caffeinated gel mix (which did give me the usual annoying gassy aftertaste for the whole race so I’ll try something different next time) and my in-race fuel was Tailwind (which worked great, but I need to drink more of it per fuel point as I still had some left at the end).

The course is very much recommended. It’s nice and flat other than some minor flyover inclines around the halfway point. There’s not a massive amount of crowd support, but it’s great when it’s there. There’s a mile 12 out-and-back with a very similar vibe to the mile 12 out-and-back at the Edinburgh half (i.e. when the HELL is this thing going to have a turning point?), but in general I’m a fan of out-and-backs as you can concentrate on looking out for people.

The only slight issue was that all the mile markers from 5 to 12 seemed to be slightly early, each appearing about 0.2 miles before they were expected. (I know watch GPS isn’t totally accurate but I also know the inaccuracy pattern of *my* watch and I’ve never seen early markers before!) As such, I expected the race to measure slightly short by GPS – but the 13-mile marker more than made up for the shortfall and my watch ended up reading 13.3 at the finish, which is what I would typically expect.

Overall, it was a really great race. I’ll be back sometime when I’ve got better fitness.

Now for a week of recovery (or a fortnight if I feel I need it – I’m trying to listen to my body more) before training begins for the next one.

This was the inaugural (I hope) running of this event, held in the evening of Hogmanay in the centre of Newcastle. I never thought about doing a New Year race before but it was a great atmosphere!

Not a PB race – too congested and too dark – but at this time of year we were after a fun run instead, and this delivered.

I am properly hibernating for the rest of the winter now. Training break for two months (just keeping things ticking over via my usual run schedule) and then a baseline half marathon to see where I am, because that will be my main focus for 2026. Looking forward to it.

I wasn’t really feeling this one going in!

Geth and I booked it in May after feeling a tiny bit disappointed with our Sunderland times (I was still of the belief at that point that I would be getting a PB at every distance in 2025 like I did last year… I have since been roundly disabused of that notion!). After a hectic autumn, heading off to Leeds to race a 10k in the cold was the last thing we wanted to do. Nevertheless, we decided to make a weekend of it – there was a Christmas market, after all, and we seem to be collecting those this year.

Despite the forecast, I didn’t feel as cold on the start line as I did when we last raced this one in 2023. I was in a vest last time, mind, whereas this year I went for a longsleeve. It used to be a mid-October race but Run For All have taken it over this year and moved it to the end of November. This did result in an improved course by our standards (the start was right outside our usual hotel and there was no hill towards the end) as the route had to avoid the Christmas market.

It was one of those races where I chose not to look at my watch at any point, ran the whole thing on feel, and tried not to second-guess myself by looking at the pacers. The result was a fairly steady run, a negative split according to the results, and a consistent 50:25. Three seconds slower than Sunderland, which is a bit annoying, but I honestly didn’t expect to be anywhere near 50 minutes. I have found it really hard to recover from Amsterdam over the last month, and I’ve been suffering a bit in the colder weather with my asthma – my interval paces have been much, much slower than usual – so I just didn’t think I’d be able to run at a faster pace. Apparently I was wrong.

The fact that I can pull out a 50ish minute 10k after far-from-ideal training has given me a lot of confidence for next year. Overall I’m really happy with that race. Not at all what I expected!

This race didn’t quite go to plan.

The marathon weekend logistics were great, the expo was great (we went on the Friday as we always do; you don’t want to be queueing for hours among the Saturday crowds), the training block had been… mostly okay. I had to cut a few long runs short and change a lot of things around with fuelling plans in the fairly late stages due to nausea causing issues at the GNR, but it had gone better than my Yorkshire block last year. Or so I felt, anyway.

I was attempting sub-4 again, but anything faster than my PB (4:16:30) would have been… acceptable.

Race morning was straightforward. Very early start for an early starting time, but I was fine with that – I prefer races to start earlier than later. It was a bit of a pain to get to our wave’s baggage area, but we were settled in the start pen in plenty of time. I left Geth at the front of the wave and headed to the back to find the four-hour pacers.

Once we got going, I stuck with the pacers (as planned) for the first half; they were going a bit too fast but it was comfortable-ish. Nevertheless this may have contributed to fatigue at halfway.

The first half felt like it flew by, but it was really congested, especially in our large pace group. The uneven ground (features of Amsterdam roads include tram lines and uncovered neat holes about half a foot across – and I’m really not sure of the reason for the latter!) didn’t help, and at least one person went flying fairly early. It was quite a bit of extra effort to avoid other runners. I didn’t really notice the landmarks as I was focusing so hard on the pacers’ flags and trying not to fall too far behind (which again was tough due to the congestion).

There were lots of runners asking/commenting about the Town Moor and/or Newcastle due to my Benchie club vest! Even spoke to a guy who turned out to know our club captain Ed 😀

I really started noticing the aforementioned fatigue at about ten miles. Due to this, I had to drop the pace a little as I approached the halfway point. I had already given up on sticking with the pacers, as they really did seem to be intent on keeping up the slightly-too-fast pace (most of my splits were registering on my watch as about 8:30 minute miles while I was running with them). I eventually went through the halfway point in bang on 2 hours and by that time they were completely out of sight.

I could probably have toughed the rest of the race out for somewhere between 4:10 and 4:15 if not for the hideous nausea that has been a feature of pretty much all my long pace efforts this year. Every kind of fuel makes me feel sick (or is otherwise unusable/problematic) on fast long races. Every single thing I’ve tried. And given that you can’t do fast long races without mid-run fuelling, this is a significant problem that needs a lot of work and thought. I’ll be expanding on this in the next blog post.

By about 15 miles in, running at any pace for more than 0.2 of a mile at a time made me want to collapse against the nearest tree and vomit up the entirety of my internal organs, so walking it was. I channelled my friend and clubmate Clare and powerwalked as fast as I could, with occasional run breaks when I could stand it. This made me feel a lot better nausea-wise, though I could have done without all the supporters constantly telling me to start running again.

My memory of the race throughout this section is honestly very blurry and fuzzy. Strangely, even though I had slowed significantly due to the walking, the miles seemed to be ticking by faster than ever, and it felt like the race flew by quicker than my two faster marathons in 2024. I remember the last few miles of the Walt Disney World Marathon feeling similar even though that was very slow, so maybe it’s just what happens when focusing on run-walk intervals.

Finish line crossed at 4:45:29. I pulled off an epic sprint finish with bags of energy left, so I know I did have a lot faster in me. Not my day though.

In hindsight the warning signs were there in training. I’ll be switching to shorter stuff for a while but this one’s given me a lot to think about.

I usually do a debrief at the end of race recap blogs, but there’s a lot that needs to shift with my running in general so I’ll put all of those thoughts in a separate post.