This would be the third time doing this eace in the space of two years. With my half marathon goal achieved in March, and another PB attempt scheduled for March 2020; I decided that this race would be just for fun. I'd raced on Thursday and had put around 80-85% effort into that. As it was only a 5K my legs had mostly recovered; but I knew I couldn't go fast for the entire race.

When I got to Willen Lake, I sat in my car until 09:00 as I'd arrived earlier than intended. Although it'd been advertised we could use the Unity car park for £3 the car park attendents wouldn't allow it - so I was in the main car park which is a 'pay when you leave' one. I'd planned on avoiding that in case I forgot when it came to leaving (though I did remember, and as it happens was the cheaper option anyway).

I did a nice gentle 1 mile warm-up around the lake, and then went to see if I could find anyone I knew. Eventually I bumped into Carmen To, who I've met at a few races previously, and then was met by Kyla and a few others. It sounds like some of them had been out drinking the night before! As it got close to the race start I made my way to the pen for starting in the first wave.

I'd positioned myself a good 10-15 metres away from the start line; yet barely anyone went to stand in front of me. It meant I was farther forward at the start than I'd planned. Though when someone stretching in front of me kicked me somewhere nobody ever wants to be kicked, I certainly wished there was nobody in front of me at all.

After that unexpected blow; when the race started I decided my way of enjoying the first 5-10K of the race would be to let myself do it at a reasonable pace. By this, I mean I was doing it at the same sort of pace as my 5K race a few days before (that goes to show how bad I'd done in that race!). I was even capable of holding a conversation with Lloyd Cross as he caught up. Whilst I was going to be happy with around 90 minutes today, he was aiming for around 82 minutes despite having done Cross country the day before. Impressive! He soon shot off like a rocket, never to be seen again (he did great in his race and got sub-82!).

During the fourth mile I felt a slight twinge that felt like it was going to be a stitch, and I remembered finding that around the same place when doing this race at some point previously. It faded as quickly as it had arrived, and I carried on without losing any time. At around the half-way point I slowed down briefly to get some water. Within a mile the stitch had returned, this time it was back to stay. I wanted to enjoy this race, so rather than struggle through it I walked. I was okay about that too - it may have been a bit windy; but it was a nice sunny day. Having been running, I'd warmed up nicely too.

For the remaining miles I took walking breaks every now and then, and I think those breaks were around one or two per mile (except for mile 11 which I rain entirely as I thought the stitch was fading). Eventually, I crossed the finish line with a time of 1:29:07 in position 69 of 2,136 finishers. I noticed there were not just a lot of DNFs this time, but also quite a few runners got disqualified - presumably for wearing headphones.

Not the quickest of halves; but I did what I set out to do.