Month: November 2014

Half Marathon PB by the Sea

I hadn’t even thought about running the Gosport Half Marathon a few weeks ago. I’d got my PB at the Great Eastern Run in Peterborough at the start of October (76.56) and was delighted by beating my previous PB by 5 minutes and my previous best of 2014 by 8 minutes. 

 

It all changed when my fiancé Sarah (who was due for her half debut at the Blenheim Palace Half also at the start of October, but got ill so couldn’t do enough training) decided she wanted to go for another half before we went on holiday. I looked around for halves nearby that would be good for a beginner and the Gosport half popped out at me. The course was flat and promised great views over the Solent and it was only 20 minutes drive from my granny’s flat in Portsmouth! It was less than £20 to run so Sarah signed up.  read more

The Dirt Half

By Adam Haylock

 

Many months ago when the sun was shining and the days were long, Glen sent out a message to see who fancied running the Dirt Half this year. Apparently it fills up early so I thought “why not?”, and entered.  Throughout the summer I have continued to avoid hills and any kind of long runs until a couple of weeks ago when I stepped up my training and put in one 10 miler and a single 13.1 mile test run. What gets me about half marathons is that all of a sudden you have to start taking it seriously – proper training, fuelling, hydration and improved race tactics, so the preparation started the night before by only drinking 4 cans of Stella. read more

Water From All Directions

There were a few different comments coming out the woodwork before the second Chiltern League of the season on Saturday; "There's a water jump to run through?", "It looks a bit flat for my liking.", "Doesn't look too muddy.", "Nice to be at a new course." and "Glad I'm not coming from Bracknell." were just some of them, but they told much of the story of our day.

In recent years our small club has excelled in a few different ways, but most notably of all (in my opinion anyway) is how we come together and prove that our team is far greater than the sum of it's parts and Saturday's run showed that even more than most. We were missing a few runners for various reasons and some weren't quite where they hoped to be but the others stepped up to the mark superbly. read more

The Clays March On

Winter seemed to have arrived in Leighton Buzzard on Bonfire Night as most of the conversation before the start of the November Stag revolved around how chuffing cold it was. What was noted though was the distinct lack of wind to hold up any of the runners around the course so there was still potential for fast times if you were properly warmed up.

After returning to running last month, Mandy Clay was once again first to set off from Parson's Close with the aim of emulating her 25 points from October, but with twenty others trying their hardest to chase her down it wasn't going to be quite so easy this time around. The field included a guest runner in Chris Taylor from LFR and a couple of debutants in Chloe Broxup and Henry Wainwright. Fiona has been nagging Chloe to return to the club for a year after one training run in 2013 and Chloe brought Henry along for the ride. read more