I’ve not had a brilliant track record with attempting this race. In 2015 I wanted to do this, but it clashed with another race I was doing. In 2016 I actually entered the race, but couldn’t train at the time the race happened due to flu which was at it’s worse around the day of the race. It then looked like this race wasn’t going to be going ahead in 2017 after there was talk of the race organisers not having renewed their contract – but fortunately it did.

The weekend before this race I did a 22 mile run – the longest run before my second attempt at the Great Manchester Marathon. This meant that this race would become part of a taper towards the marathon, without easing off the effort too much. In recent weeks there had been a lot of rain, and the temperatures were inconsistent making it difficult to decide what kit to use.

I didn’t even know what pace to try and aim for. A year ago I was running 10 miles in 64 minutes and I’d hoped to PB at this distance in the near future. Now, I’m not quite back there, yet I felt even if I couldn’t hit the time I wanted last year that I might just be able to improve upon my 91 minute PB. On the drive to Coventry I thought some more about this and decided that as I’d been told it was a flat course, and the race briefing suggested it was all down hill except for one hill, I might just try sub-90. If there was only one hill, then to account for all the down hill sections it talked about it must be a pretty sharp hill.

When I arrived in Coventry the parking was quick and easy, and was also free due to the parking meter not working. I decided to warm up by jogging slowly over to the race village, which is where I wandered around until I was spotted by William and Colin. We then stood talking inside the nearby coffee shop until we parted ways to get ready.

I made it to the race start with about 5 minutes to spare, but the starting area was that crowded I had to start about 10 metres behind the 90 minute pacer. There was promise this was going to be a fast race with how many people were looking at sub-90. This made my mind up – I’d attempt to stick with the pacer for the entire race.

When the race started though the pacer was off like a rocket and covered the first mile in about 06:30. I hadn’t anticipated sub-90 meaning quite that much pace as I’d been expecting to be a little slower. As I was losing ground on the pacer I decided to speed up in the second mile, and somehow overtook him. Whilst he was behind me I heard a noise from about 10-15 metres behind and noticed that the pacer was getting back after having fallen over. I couldn’t be sure, but I think the flag on the pacer’s backpack had caught the wind and blown him over.

For the remainder of the second mile, I stayed in front of the pacer thinking that I was now going at around the same pace as he was. Part way into the third mile though I felt a runner run straight into the back of me – kicking my feet, and then barging through, almost knocking me over. I had no idea why he’d done that – although there were runners either side of me, he could have got passed by going around them. There was space!

During the third mile I started to get warm and was regretting wearing a compression layer under my t-shirt. Eventually the pacer caught up with me whilst I was still doing 6:40min/mile pace and over took me. I knew I couldn’t maintain the pace he was going at and so I realised I wouldn’t be getting the sub-90 time I’d hoped for. I started to calculate paces in my head and thought to myself that for a sub-90 time I only needed to maintain 6:50min/mile, but maybe I’d miscalculated. Or maybe the pacer knew something I didn’t and was going quicker now to make up for time that would be lost later.

Before reaching the 4 mile marker I suddenly found myself going up hill. It came as a bit of a surprise as on Twitter I’d been told it was a “flat PB course”, and the only hill of mention in the notes was one around mile 8-9. I knew strong winds were a possibility, but hadn’t expected more than one hill. At the top of the hill I found I was starting to overheat so slowed to a walk so I could take off my compression layer. Just before I was ready the course then started to go back down hill, before repeatedly going up hill over the next four miles. These miles were hard work and between them and the wind I didn’t think I could run them – I was soon walking more and more.

By this point I couldn’t imagine how far in front the sub-90 pacer must be, but I’d assumed he’d slowed the pace considerably by now. I was certain the quicker miles at the start were to account for a steady 4 mile up-hill section. It may have been a relatively flat course compared to one such as the Nepal Marathon which is on a mountain, but I was certainly not prepared to call this one flat.

More or less immediately after the mile 8 marker it was then a steady down hill, with the exception of a loop down one road where you run down it, then up it. Half way down this road I did see the sub-90 pacer coming the opposite way and I calculated that I was a few minutes behind. I’d hoped that as it looked like it would be down hill for a while that I’d now run all the way to the finish – this was not the case though as I found running back up that loop was more of a walk.

But from the time I reached the top I ran most of the way from there to the finish. There was one or two slight hills I walked up on the way, but not for long. In places I noticed that the wind had been that strong that it had blown over some of the road closure barriers, and a little down the road they sent a bike along the course to move us over as the cones were being blown over as well. When I saw the 13 mile marker it was a relief, but I couldn’t be bothered to sprint to the finish.

I crossed the finish line in position 240 out of 2,876 finishers (first 8%), with a chip time of 1:34:45. It was quite a way off from my personal best, but I guess it could have been worse under the circumstances. Upon crossing the finish line I had to jump to the side to avoid a runner who had decided to come to a complete standstill less than half a metre from the finish line, but fortunately I wasn’t moving quickly.

At the exit to the finishers area they hand you a water bottle, and a carrier bag containing a finishers medal, leaflets, and a bar of something. I was that annoyed with myself I walked straight back to my car (having taken a wrong turn once whilst trying to find it) and didn’t look at the medal until hours after I’d gotten home.

It’s safe to say I won’t hit my target at the Greater Manchester Marathon in 13 days, but I’ll try my best to get as close to it as I can. Maybe later in the year I can find another half marathon to enter and improve on this, and maybe even get the sub-90 time I want.