Sunday 24 January 2010

Brass Monkey Half Marathon


I was pleased to run 81:31 today, which is 7 minutes faster than I managed at Brussels in October. It's a very fast course and conditions were near perfect. I set off a bit too quickly, but managed to keep going at a reasonable pace, my 5k splits were:

1st 5k: 18:42
2nd 5k 18:59
3rd 5k: 19:29
4th 5k: 19:56

My time for the first 10k was actually a couple of seconds quicker than I ran at the Abbey Dash in November, which is quite surprising given that the Leeds race is one of the fastest 10k races in the UK.

I was helped along today by other Ilkley Harriers who were running at a similar pace: Jonathan S, Paul O, Stephen C & also Andy W. I didn't see Andy during the race, but he finished only a couple of seconds behind me. Justin P had a really good run today, beating 80 minutes. Josie H of Otley had a great run to finish second lady.

I got a prize as first M55 and also set the Ilkley Harriers club record at M50 as well as M55. The time was quick enough to qualify for the Power of 10 rankings & I think that it's the 2nd fastest M55 time in the UK so far this year (bearing in mind it's only January and many races have been cancelled due to the bad weather.

7 comments:

  1. really well done today, Henry - interesting to see your 5k splits compared to mine. I thought you guys had all gone off at a fair lick and so it shows. Mine were:
    19:08
    19:16
    19:18
    19:46

    So I was actually 41s behind after 10k, 20s down after 20k and 5s down by the end. Just needed another 200m!!

    It'll be interesting to see Paul's splits, given his blistering start.

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  2. Well done Henry - a great result.
    Unfortunately our family Garmin was worn by my wife today. I was just depending on one of my children's "Barbie" watches so wasn't able to capture my splits. After the first mile in about 5.50 I then settled down to about 6:05/6.10s for at least the first half of the race - and then gradually faded through the second half.

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  3. Well done Henry for running another awesome PB. You must be so chuffed and buzzing to run your next race. Well done to the rest of the Ilkley boys today too, great to seeall your hard work paying dividends. See you soon.

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  4. Well done Henry - mightily impressive run. Congratulations on the category win - many more to come, given the form you are in. The hard work and talent is paying off. Really pleased for you. Marc T.

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  5. Great running today Henry - well done on the club records great running
    My splits (3 miles not 5k)were
    18.19, 18.24, 18.51, 19.03 - so slowed but managed to hang on better than most the last 4 miles. Though i am sure the main clock at the finish was slow as i crossed the line according to the clock before 1.21 - still really happy with a 7min PB though. Feet and legs are not too sure tonight however

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  6. Well done at the Brass Monkey. Your splits are good. I think most people do the last half slower, so don't worry too much about the difference. Pleased to see you are aware of the rankings and using it as a motivator.

    Happy running.

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