So it’s that time of year again time to head to Silverstone to run around my favourite place! Every year I look forward to my trip to Silverstone, no matter what the weather is like I just love running around the race track.
This year the weather was kind to us being an old aerodrome its rather flat and open so can be very windy but the wind held off this time although we did get a bit damp at the start. As I’m sure I’ve told most of you before this is the official warm up race to the London Marathon so organised by Adidas and draws some big names. David Weir won the Wheelchair race for the 6th year in a row and I managed to get a glimpse of him as he came back onto the track for the final 3 miles, I on the other hand had just passed the 3 mile marker so still had rather a long way to go.
For some reason I decided I was going to attempt to get a PB on race day and as there are Runners World pacers on the course to help you I found the 2 hour 15 minute one and decided to hang on to him as long as I could. I admit this was probably an unrealistic goal but decided it was about time I pushed myself to see how fast I could go.
We lined up on the old start/finish straight and headed off to Copse corner with the Chain ringing in our ears, although I had created my own play list with lots of dance music to get me round, I ran off chasing the pacer and managed to hang on to him for the first few miles well I had him in my sights at least but I’m afraid I just didn’t have it in me to keep up. I pushed as hard as I could despite being in some discomfort from tight calf’s but I’m too stubborn to give up so I had a few words with myself and kept going as fast as I could, at the very least I refused to be passed by the 2 hours 30 minute pacer I wasn’t going to be slower than last year.
With Dave popping up around the circuit with the camera at times without me seeing him I kept going until I could see we were heading back onto the track and the final 3 miles to home. Unfortunately the last few miles are mainly up hill, well I say a hill there’s a slight incline but when you’ve mainly been running on the flat it feels bigger than it really is! But by this time the sun had come out and I knew I didn’t have far to go.
I eventually got to the 13 mile marker and decided to do my usual sprint finish and past a few others with surprised looks at my speed towards the end, not fast compared to most of you but in my head I’m Usain Bolt in the 100 metres at the Olympics!
I eventually crossed the line in 2 hours 23 minutes 54 seconds, very pleased with myself not a PB but 6 minutes faster than last years time and only 4 minutes of my PB so I’ll be back in 2018 trying again and enjoying every minute of it.
Here's a link to some photos from the day Silverstone Half 2017