Helsby Half Marathon

Had a horrendous run at Helsby, and I’ve no excuses. You can’t get away with drinking and racing at my age, I know it but still went ahead and ruined my chances of doing a good run at Helsby. I felt great leading up to it. OK, I hadn’t been getting many long runs in but I was still in decent shape, pb at Ribble Valley four weeks ago and I felt like I was jogging during the 4 mile tempo at 5:56 pace on Thursday. I’d pulled the same routine before the Lake Vynwy half and the Sale 10 mile (which I just about got away with). I suppose it’s the immature child within that thinks its gonna miss out on some great revelation if they don’t go out and get hammered! I’m pretty disciplined when it comes to training but whenever I’m racing, particularly on a Sunday, I crumble to temptation.

The race itself was in tough conditions. The days leading up to the race seen 25 to 30 mph winds lashing the North West and Sunday was no exception. Although the organisers had moved the start, it was still very tight and by the time I’d got going, I lost a good 20 seconds in the first mile. Again, no one to blame but myself. I eventually started picking up speed and working through the field, the wind nearly knocking me off my feet each time I popped out of a group to move.

Around 3 miles in the wind was behind and my initial game plan was to push from 2 to 6 miles as this is downhill and on Sunday wind assisted. I went through 10k in 38:10, still off my ideal pace but at least I’d made up some ground. I caught up with fellow strider Keiren Birrell and my namesake and much better runner 1st lady Gemma Connolly around 7 miles but as we hit the hill, she and the others eased away. A trickle of runners came by me, always a bad sign and I clung on hoping to catch them before the big downhill finish.

Of course this didn’t happen, I still pushed as hard as I could and was conscious I was in danger of finishing slower than I did last year, which would have been an embarrassment seeing as I’d only been running for 15 weeks following a bad leg break! I finished in 82:36, 30 seconds quicker than 2011 and not the end of the world. I was happy to see some great times from fellow striders and other local runners which proved that despite the conditions, there were good times to be had. Hats off to Dean Connolly from PLS who knocked a whopping 6 mins off his PB. Again, no relation which is shame because between me him and Gemma, we’d have easily won the family team prize ?