Port Talbot Half Marathon

Yep, I went back to the Port Talbot half marathon for the 3rd year in a row. I only really did it again this year because my friend Lisa, (who is the receptionist at Whitchurch Chiropractic in Cardiff, who treated me for a pelvis misalignment), was looking for a race to enter. I gave her a list of races that I had completed previously and that I knew were coming up in the near future and she chose the Port Talbot half marathon.

Now the Port Talbot half marathon is not a race around the streets of Port Talbot, and in fact it isn't even in Port Talbot, it takes place in a lovely valley north of Port Talbot starting at the Glyncorrwg Ponds & Visitor Centre, an outdoors venue for fishing, cycling and walking mostly but, the race is organised by Port Talbot Harriers, which is where the race gets its name from.

On the day I arrived nice and early as last year I seemed to remember that car parking was at a premium and I didn't fancy having to park too far away from the start, which is a bit ironic if you think about it. There I was worrying about a bit of a walk to and from the car when I was about to run 13.1 miles.

Lisa arrived with her husband Stephen and it was just a case then of hanging out until our start time, which was a little after 11 AM. Now I decided that I was going to run with Stephen and Lisa, dropping back a couple of starting pen places as I had been suffering from runners knee which had been bugging me for about three weeks. I had run at Parkrun the day before, which I took at an easy pace and my knee had held up but I could feel it niggling in the background all the time so, knowing that my usual pace was going to be quicker than Stephen and Lisa's, I had decided that I would run with them and see how my knee fared over the longer distance.

3 - 2 - 1 Bang .........

And we were off, pretty slowly, along a narrow path and we soon came grinding to a halt as the crowds funneled through a narrow gate. The path took us around the ponds, up a steep but short ramp and then we had a very long straight section but, there were so many people that it was difficult to get past anyone, but we did manage to pass a few people on our way to the first water station at about 3 miles.

I was keeping my eye on Stephen who was a few meters behind me and who was a few meters in front of Lisa and they were keeping a stead pace, however I was finding that I was having to slow my pace to keep in touch with them as I naturally wanted to run faster. My knee was feeling OK as long as I didn't lengthen my stride too much, so I kept a shorter stride but increased my cadence.

4.5 miles in and we began a very gradual decent down to the water station at mile 6. I looked behind me and Stephen and Lisa were quite a bit further back. I had obviously quickened my pace without realising it and so I made the decision to deliberately increase my speed. I wanted to make the most of the extra speed I could achieve on this decent before we began the 7 mile ascent from the 6 mile water station where I knew my pace would be somewhat slower.

The crowds had thinned out dramatically by now and so passing others wasn't a problem and I reached the water station with no issues and feeling strong and good, now we begin the uphill section.

Going up!

Now I say uphill, and I do use the term in this instance loosely because it is a very gradual incline, however, after running up this incline for 7 miles most people are usually feeling the burn in the quads and glutes with a couple of miles still left to run but, I wasn't feeling to bad at all.

I was having to concentrate on my running form for the final mile though. I was passing others who were obviously tired, their feet were shuffling along, torso's stooped over and heads bowed looking almost down at their feet. It is so easy to end up doing this but I kept telling myself to keep my head up, my body straight or a very slight lean forward and power my arms back and forth which would drive my legs forward naturally, and this got me strongly through to the finish in about 02:09, which I was happy with considering my knee and holding back my pace for those first few miles.

Stephen crossed the finish line next followed by Lisa a few minutes later. Lisa has a charity place for the 2020 London Marathon so this would be a good start to her training. If she can keep 13 miles in her legs until after the Christmas holidays then she has a good basis to start training from and should then only need about 3 months to get to a race ready position and, my advise to her would be to get to 23 miles in training, not the 18-20 miles as recommended by many. I remember reaching 20 miles at Manchester and then those final 6 miles were the hardest 6 miles I had ever run.

So all in all this was a good race, particularly so as the rain held off, and those that know me will tell you how much I dislike running in the rain.

Lisa and I are next running on the 1st September in the Tough Runner organised Cotswold trail half marathon.

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