Compton Verney Half Marathon

After the very wet Hilly 10k of two weeks ago the weather has done a sudden flip to very hot at times.  It was nearly 20 deg at Parkrun on Saturday morning.  Fortunately it had cooled down a bit for Sunday and was merely in the high teens for most of the Compton Verney Half Marathon.

This was the first time I'd entered this particular event having handed out water to runners for the last 2 years (Scouts were out handing out water again this year).  With one very short exception (where you run 25 yards down a road to turn round a bollard and run back again to make up the full distance) it's actually a really nice route.

The start is in front of Compton Verney House, now an art gallery and park.  The first half mile or so through the park's landscaped gardens is undulating before you get a long downhill section.  If you've studied the route map you of course realise that you're going to have to run back up this in the closing miles of the race.  It then heads off into the countryside along nice quiet lanes.  

I deliberately started right at the back of the field to avoid the temptation to sprint off too fast at first.  There is a small risk of getting blocked but knowing that you go onto closed roads fairly quickly it's not too much of a worry as there is plenty of overtaking room.  I then spent the entire race picking off runners ahead of me.  I find that's a far better way to maintain a good pace throughout than constantly looking at the figures on a watch.  Especially as it automatically encourages you to negative split the race - the further you go the faster you have to run to keep overtaking people.

The organisers, Tempo Events, put out plenty of water stations, including extra drops of water every couple of miles when it's hot.  There were even semi-frozen ice pops being handed out by a marshal this year.  Lovely.

The final hill isn't so lovely.  Although it's not actually that steep or that long coming as it does around mile 12 it's enough to drain the energy from you, especially if it's hot.  I decided to play it tactically and walk up the steepest section of the hill, knowing that it was then pretty much gently down hill to the finish.  The tactic paid off with the final mile being my fastest by a few seconds.

I'd set myself an 'A' target of under 1 hr 58 with a 'B' target of under 2 hours.  In the end I was 7 seconds under my 'A' target so pretty pleasing overall.

This has got to be the biggest and heaviest bit of bling in my growing collection!  The ribbon is about an 1 and a half across

This little chap is nothing to do with running.  I spotted him (her?) soaking up the sun on Saturday afternoon when the temperature hit 30C.  

Totals for the week:

Miles: 24.27

Elevation gained: 187 m

Le Jog: 582 miles (just past Kenmore)