Gloucester Half Marathon – 24 July 2011

Linda Howell reports: By the time I arrived at Newent Leisure centre for the Gloucester half marathon, I had discovered three things:

1. The sat nav on my phone works really rather well;
2. When you want the weather forecast to be wrong, Murphy’s law says it won’t be and the sun will blaze down on you;
3. An hour on the motorway is more than sufficient to seize up tired legs to the extent that exerting force on the clutch to change gear is more than just a touch problematic – I apologise to any cars in front that may have glanced in the rear view mirror and seen a rather unattractive grimace from the lady trying to pull off from a junction!

That withstanding, I was here now so thought I’d best give it a go.

I struck up conversation with a local lady who knew what we were letting ourselves in for and the words “drag”, “challenging” and “bit of a nasty incline” did nothing to boost my confidence so I was pleased to be distracted by the late arrival of Terry Doherty who had yet to register 15 minutes before the start.

A gentle walk down the road, past the 13 mile marker, and we were off. The field wasn’t huge, circa 200, but it was friendly and relaxed and soon put me at ease.

The course is out, loop, back, so whatever you go down on the out, you’ll be coming up on the back. We took in countryside, true rural aromas, in my case a few flies and tackled some cheeky “undulations”. It was a lovely route and when you had chance and weren’t focused on the lucky chap who was already at the top of the latest incline, you could admire some of the scenery bathed in the same sun that was slowly reducing us to somewhat wilted forms.

All in all it was a great run, low key, friendly, supportive and a good venue including showers – a definite plus!
I wouldn’t say it had PB potential, but running off the back of the tour probably influenced how tough I found it.
A bountiful goody bag (if you like Horlicks) and a model trainer as a memento left me with a happy, hmm, that’s different feeling ☺

I would definitely run it again to see how it feels when “fresh” and would like to thank Gloucester AC for a well organised, enjoyable event. Happily, I didn’t see any photographers, so no images of Terry and me descending into pools of sweat should be available.

Full results.