City Pier City Half Marathon

This would be quite a land-mark day. CPC was my first ever half marathon last year. The parcours was slightly different and, thank goodness we did not have to run down the cobblestones after running along the sea front. Although I missed the sea front.

The first warm day that I have run! The first time in JUST a T-shirt – and rather smart has Joost had arranged new company shirts.

BUSY! There were over 7,000 running. The start was as if we were in a cage.  It was very unclear which was D & E so pretty much all of us were in the same cage. I forgot to look at the time that I went over the start as I was focused on switching my watch on – concked which out after 10 minutes.

Taking care not to get an elbow in th face, stumble on a pavement edge or fall into a tram line – oh yes and run around the parked cars…seemed to be the focus for the first 10 K.  Some people were running on a sandy part. I tried this for a while before I realised that we were in dog poop land! I joined the road only to have grit in my eye for the next couple of kms.

It was rather strange as I was almost re-living the emotions that I had during the first half. I knew that I was pretty tired at 12 km and I knew that if I got through 17 km then I would make it.  It seemed almost laughable to think of those emotions and thoughts now. NOW I am somewhere between nervous and scared to death as I think – haha – after this – only half way 🙂

I wanted to break my previous CPC PB of 1 h 54 min – of course. Naturally – being who I am – I REALLY secretly wanted to achieve a PB (1h 48m). BUT so crowded. My first 10 k was terrible – the brutto time was 57 mins – this was bad news. I needed to “get my bum in gear” as my brother would say. But into which gear. In some ways this was good marathon training – i.e. to achieve this pace throughout – but my time!! No this could not happen.

I figured that if I clicked up a pace for each of the next two 5 km stretches – this should at least get me in the ball park. So into the next gear. Passing a few more people. At 15 km, I clicked up another gear. Some people were already walking – come on  – just dribble…

This seemed to be going well. I wonder if it just felt faster or if it really was faster. At around 16 km I used my secret weapon – a Winrgy Shooter. It was quite tricky to drink from the tiny bottle and not lose pace. I kept it up.

Are the Hague towers – focus on them girl the finish is somewhere left of these. They came closer.

Yes! here is the corner – is it too early to sprint?  Do it anyway – I kicked into the corner and headed hell for leather (well it seemed tat way!) towards the finish. I HAD to cross the line within my last year’s netto time. 1,54 loomed up – I dashed as hard as I could – HOORAY! over the line just a shade over 1,54 so I must have beaten ny previous CPC time.

I viewed the results when I returned home. I was pretty pleased. Indeed a steady acceleration and the sprint at the end was reflected.

I checked a few names in the Bergse Runners Club. Some had performed really amazing times. But what is this? My netto time was faster than one of the trainers – by an ENORMOUS-it-makes-all the-difference 20 seconds!!!! (It later turned out that he had a problem in the third 5 Km with his thigh muscle – now OK). I am rather pleased with the profile as well. Instead of the peaked too early and sank away profile of the previous year – I had a steadily increasing on – TOP!

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