While a number of our colleagues were running London – can’t wait to see their reports – others continue with their training for Edinburgh! Laura writes of her Blackpool experiences:
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With Edinburgh drawing nearer and with being on the ski slopes for Wilmslow HM I decided to set my sights on Blackpool HM as a 4 weeks before tester of race pace for the big day.
Storm Hannah had blasted most of the UK on Saturday but conditions looked considerably more favourable for Sunday.
Being a looped course along the promenade at least I should have some of the race with the wind behind me (1st 4.5 miles and last 2.5 as it turned out) .
With a field of 740 runners, starting the opposite way to the marathon runners the gun went off. A considerably quick 5km with the wind behind me as I braced myself for a slog at the turn around point. Feeling strong after the marathon training I worked with a little group of newly found friends in a kind of half marathon chain gang taking turns on the front. Smiling and high 5 ing the kids and taking in the somewhat run down and slightly tacky scenery, before hitting the final stretch along the lower prom with the wind behind us to push us to the end.
I actually really enjoyed it and had put a 3 mile warm up and mile cool down in so got some decent miles with effort in.
A great training exercise for a costal marathon. I finished 13 lady in a chip time of 1.41.14 and gun time of 1.41.28 so slightly slower than I set out to do but factoring in the wind I was pleased.
[1] 1st Man Andrew Navjord unattached 1.16.21 1.16.19 [chip]
[23] 1st Lady Rebecca Holdaway Eastbourne Rovers 1.27.35 1.27.31
[107] F13 Laura Fairhurst Wilmslow RC 1.41.14 1.41.28
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Well done Laura – tapering soon? 🙂