Race Report by Dave Goodwin
So after last weeks DNS at the Manchester Marathon due to the emotion of Wembley it was onto a day of supporting Anne-Marie and the Massey crew at the 40 mile Coventry Way. Of course plan A was to have faffed about in laybys today eating jelly babies & sausage rolls in my Manchester FINISHER t-shirt and shouting general encouragement every 5 miles or so as they all came past.
In life we have to be ready for the plan B at all times and when I realised that there was time in the schedule to pop to rural Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire and get stuck into the Belvoir Half off we went. I had ran this twice before in 2011 and 2013 as part of London marathon training and looking back I was over the moon with my 1.56 in 2013. Knowing it was a course to do well on I encouraged James and Nathan in the car that they would be flying round and I would be not too far behind.
The mercury was already off the scale (do they have mercury in cars?) showing 18 deg when we left our kit bag in the handily placed car park just by the start and finish. Splash of the sun cream and we were off. 4 mile in I was still 9 min miling woop woop this is a PLAN A time, but then the reality of the heat kicked in. Got to half way at 1h3 and knew that was a tough gig to keep up. I realised again that the 2 hr mark was way off and reverted to a steadier pace and a Plan B as reassurance for my MK Half Marathon 2.10 pacing role in a few weeks’ time.
I came round to 12 miles after chugging through cute villages in Stilton producing country, my veins were popping like blue cheese as I knew I was damn thirsty at that point. I just saw James in the distance and went past him. It was a surprise for me but I could see that he had been sensible and considering his forthcoming marathon and decided to drop back due to the heat as well.
Finishing at the Hose Village Hall, a banana and cereal bar was hoovered up at PB pace and some schoolgirls were selling ice pops / jubbulys and our day was complete. The unbridled joy of an ice lolly was like nothing else, ok it wasn’t quite walking up Wembley Way but as a moment in time 7 days later I was in ecstasy again!
Nathan Bignall 1.52
David Goodwin 2 .08
James Padvis 2.13
