Balloch to Clydebank Half Marathon 2016

The most irritating sort of disappointment? The avoidable sort.

Once you’re at the start line of the race what’s going to happen is going to happen – you’ll get the result that whatever training you’ve done warrants. No special flourishes on the day will make any difference. The best you can hope to do is relax, follow the plan and let it happen. If it doesn’t, it’s normally because it was never going to. There are no heroes in distance running.

But that’s exactly what I forgot this morning. On the week leading up to the race I was feeling confident, lots of miles, enough rest, solid training times and couple of races under my belt already this year. On the bus up to Balloch though, I felt just a bit aff – lingering cold/bad night’s sleep/whatever – same on my warm up. And once the race got going keeping to my planned splits felt harder than it should’ve done.

Now, the sensible thing would be to have gone on feel, relax a bit, maybe find some form, display some confidence in the training and make it up in the later miles. Or just accept it wasn’t going to happen today. But no, I thought, I’m fit after all, I just need to keep pushing it, my body will catch up with my expectations and glory will be mine. This worked up to mile 5, miles 5-7 were grinding and by mile 8 the jig was up; aches & pains all over, slowing down and just five dispiriting miles of hobbling to go *sigh*.

And so I ended up crossing the line about a mile off the time I wanted and in a general sulk. The lesson – it’s generally a good idea to go with the flow.

On the up-side, if previous records are anything to go by I generally have one race a year that goes seriously wrong. Probably best to get it out the way early in the season – roll-on summer!

       1) Robert Gilroy (Cambuslang) 01:09:11 

28) James 01:19:11