My story Cardiff Half 2009

Last year, I was absolutely thrilled to have been apart of the fantastic Cardiff half marathon. I was hoping to go under 1hr30. My PB before then was 1hr31.07, so the goal was to PB first and then go under 1hr30 second.

The weather was perfect, a little chilly first thing with a little bit of wind in parts, but nothing to really worry about. Heading towards the front of the line I noticed a friend of mine Ed, we got talking and I discovered he too was after a sub of 1hr30. We both positioned ourselves just behind the 1hr30 pace guy, the hooter went and the pace guy took off like a bat out of hell! He was going far too quick, so we let him go, we knew farewell that he would come back to us!

With Ed having his Garmin on he dictated the pace we needed to run. Soon we both caught up with the pace guy and after a few seconds of running at his pace we decided to out run him.

The pace was good and felt comfortable; however after a few miles it didn’t feel so comfortable! It wasn’t fast, but felt a little too quick too early. We got to the 10 mile marker well under 1hr30 pace and that’s when it began to hurt!

Ed seemed to be struggling a bit, but he still continued to push the pace on, still pushing hard. It gave me the motivation to continue on. We got to the 11 mile point and I decided to see what he had left in the tank, I gritted my teeth, picked the pace up and he was gone. At this point I knew there was only about 13 or 14 minutes of pain left, so pushed on knowing that a PB was within my grasp.

I pushed a little too hard! The final mile marker was within sight and I was hurting. The voice in my head was saying “Dig in Whittle!” I tried to hold my form together and just to keep moving at a reasonable rate, I knew the finish line was just around the corner, “Not far now” came that voice again. I could see the finish line now and kicked the final 100m, stopping the clock on 1:28:06. I was not a pretty sight, snot, sweat, spit, etc everywhere! I had given it my all and managed to drag out a 3 minute PB.

I was chuffed with the result! I couldn’t have done it without Ed-thanks mate! It was my great end to the season. To celebrate I decided to go away and eat my own bodyweight in fast food – I thought I deserved it!

Thanks for reading guys!

Mark

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