Jedburgh Half and 10km
My first Half Marathon since 19th October 2008! It's been a long time. Started off on the flat first km or so through town and felt awful. The ensuing challenging undulations over the first few miles did nothing to assuage the feeling as I was quickly dropped by the lead group of 3 and Lothian's finest, Ross Milne. My face felt like it was on fire at this stage and I dug in for an expected long day at the office. As the race wore on I did my best to keep on Milne's tail - he was 54 strides ahead at 5.5 miles or so but this gap was increasing and rapidly enough. Turning into the wind didn't help but as I watched Ross easing past Lewis Millar I realised the Central athlete was coming back to me as well. Quick stride count at 8 miles - 34! By this time Milne was up to Jonathan Carpenter and I could see he was racing properly - straight by and leaving him for dust! I did the same to Millar who was clearly struggling a bit and set about chasing down Carps. The wheels almost came off for me at about 10miles but Carpenter wasn't getting away so I stuck to the task getting within about 20-30m (stride count unknown, no energy to check). Ordinarily I'd have attacked up the long drag through 11 but yesterday's racing probably put paid to that idea. I was similarly bereft of kick on the downhill into town and the (ex) Harmeny man did enough to hold me off by 7 seconds.
Still, a course PB for me (1:14:06) by 35s and I really felt as though I'd left all out there on the course to finish 4th.
Mike Anderson also completed the Half finishing 11th in his 2nd best time ever (1:22:01) and was reported to be "well pleased".
In the 10km Steve Blair continued his resurgence running 47:30 for 83rd overall, and Stephanie Ferrington (running for team "I Should Join CAAC") ran a pb of 50:11 to finish 40 places further back and 18th Female (where are the membership forms?)
Good day out for all - oh, except for the hills and the wind...full results here http://www.jedburghhalfmarathon.org.uk/h%20mar%20results%2011.pdf and here http://www.jedburghhalfmarathon.org.uk/10k%20results%2011.pdf
Jedburgh Half and 10km
Submitted by Graeme on
Great run Tommo ( especially after running a fine leg yesterday also ) - you really have hit a rich vein of form ( ie. injury free ! ) recently .
Well done also to Mikey & Steve also .
Well done Tommy and Mike
Submitted by steveb on
Well done Tommy and Mike cracking times on a tough course in windy conditions, also well done Stephanie good running (Future CAACer in the Making?).
I've done the Half before so knew that the 10k would be tough, but being a tad tubby (what’s new) at the moment and having forgotten just how tough the hills were, it was purgatory. At 6:52 for the first mile, I was optimistic that sub 45mins was possible, by the time I had turned just after 5k and started running into the wind, my earlier optimism started to wean, the fact a colleague from work was starting to close on me did nothing to ease my feeling of ill-being. Then I hit the hill at 6k, bang, I was reduced to a shuffle, must have dropped around 12 places at this point, just tried to hang on in there until we hit the main road for the last few 'k' back into town, Ah, a nice downhill for a couple of 'k'. The last kilometre felt like it was going to last for ever, shuffled over the line at the end, thought 'more hard work required', but getting there slowly. Managed to finish 1 min 18 secs ahead of my colleague from work, but he was still a tad too close for comfort.