The Bath Half Sunday 12th March I woke up feeling like death, I had been ill for the last week and I wasn’t sleeping properly. Physically I felt shattered and didn’t really want to race. I spent the journey there talking about how I was going to take it easy and working out what paces I would need to run to get around 1:40 ish. We arrived in Bath and it was crazy busy, there were hundreds of athletes everywhere and we hadn’t even got to the ‘runners village’ yet. With about 30 minutes to go, I ate a banana, went to the toilet and then headed up to the start pen, hoping to find somewhere to warm up. I got there and it was brilliant, instead of standing still, all of the runners in my pen (the elite sub 1:30 pen) were jogging round in circles and making use of the space. I turned and looked back to see the runners in the slower pen and they were all rammed in with barely any space to move. This did wonders to boost my confidence, I felt like a proper athlete! It became time to line up at the start because there were just a few minutes to go. It was in these last few minutes that I decided there was no point in holding back and I might as well run as fast as I can and see how it goes. The hooter buzzes and everyone starts moving forward, I was less than ten people back from the start line but still got closed in when it came to the first corner. Bath is a two lap course with a little bit added on at the start and the finish so I decided to have 1 sensible lap and 1 hard lap. While on the starting line I felt a strong urge to go to the toilet, obviously I put it down to pre-race nerves. Around 3km in I realised it wasn’t just nerves and another 10 minutes later I became very desperate so I ran off into a cubicle on the side. I came straight back out and got into my stride easily. I finished my ‘sensible lap’ and figured now I had to go for it. My 10km split was 43 minutes and with 11km left, I knew I needed to up my pace a little to sneak under 1:30. Around the same time, I noticed that I had developed some rubbing on the inside of my legs, and it really hurt but of course I soldiered on and tried to smile. At around the 10 mile (16km) marker I overtook a fellow Cirencester AC runner and said something along the lines of “my legs are completely knackered.” As if to sympathise, he replied with “everyone’s legs are knackered.” Except the people who had already finished, I thought to myself. Anyway, I had promised myself a fast final 5km split and now was the time to go for it, a man in a bright green shirt was running next to me and so I asked him if he fancied upping the speed a bit (from around 4:15/km to 4:00/km) he seemed happy to do so, but his legs clearly weren’t. I dropped him after less than 1km and carried on going. Within that last 5km I really started to tire physically and mentally. On five different occasions I could’ve sworn blind that I had seen my mum and brother standing on the side cheering me on but it was impossible as they were standing at the finish…? I turned the final corner and there was the finish, a mere 50 metres away. After 21.28km of running fairly quickly, I had nothing left for a final sprint. Despite not running more than 8km since January, I finished in 1:29.8 and in 490th position. (Which shows how living a healthy lifestyle does wonders for sustaining fitness). My final 5km had been just over 20 minutes and now I really was quite tired……. until I saw Chrissie Wellington and suddenly I was energised again. She had only beaten me by 9 minutes which isn’t bad considering she is 4 time ironman world champion! 5 minutes later, I had collected my finish medal and was lying on a massage bed with two ladies massaging me at the same time! I collected my bag and then chatted to some runners I knew from Chippenham Parkrun while waiting for Dad to make his way down to the runners village. I was excited to tell him about my race but all he could think about was his time of 1:39.59 which he was very happy with. We then found a family friend that we had travelled with who finished in 1:49:30. At the start of the race there were so many people that he was forced to walk and is confident that he could have done a 1:45.00! When I got home I decided to treat my legs to an ice bath. To be perfectly honest it was much worse than any pain I had endured during the run and I was very glad to get back out. Writing this on Tuesday, my legs are still very sore. Luckily it’s a rest day which I intend to take full advantage of. It is a good thing I wasn’t running a full marathon! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. #bigthingsarecoming Check out my social media accounts: Facebook- Luke Campbell Triathlon My twitter- @lukecampbell246 Instagram- @lukecampbell246 Please like, follow, comment and share my social media accounts! My email is [email protected], send me a message if you need any help with training, nutrition or have any feedback. A big thanks is needed to the people and organisations that support me, one day it will all be worth it! Pedal Potential Performance cycles South West Swim NDJ FITNESS Dyer St Chiropractors
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