Helensburgh Half Marathon

I can't remember exactly when I last ran a half marathon but it was probably around six or seven years ago. I thought I should have run enough miles recently to make a reasonable attempt at this one, which was on the Garscube Summer League calendar. My plan was to stick to a 6:00/mile pace as far as possible, with a goal time of somewhere around 1 hour 20 minutes.

I went past the first mile marker in about 5:45, so I tried to settle back a bit, although I was already running with a pack. All the runners in front were still visible so I could see that I was in about 14th place. It started to rain quite heavily but the pack stayed together over the next few miles, and one or two runners who had started off faster were gradually caught. Coming up for 5 miles, there was the only significant climb on the course, and having fallen back slightly by now, I used the hill to move up a few places and went through 5 miles in exactly 30 minutes, which suggested we had been losing time over the previous mile or so. It was downhill for the next stretch as we headed back towards Helensburgh, and I picked up a bit of speed to get back ahead of schedule. As the course moved onto the old road for a few hundred yards, I broke away from the pack and went clear in 7th place. After the next couple of mile markers I had made up 30 seconds in total on my 6:00 average, despite having to splash through some minor flooding en route. I had been getting gradually closer to the leading Garscube runner and finally moved into 6th place shortly after going through the 10-mile mark in about 59:30. The pace was becoming harder to maintain but at the next couple of mile markers I was still running a consistent race. I had spotted some fast finishers gaining on me at one point when I had dared to look back, and I was passed just after the 12-mile mark by a runner from Dumbarton, but I held onto 7th place and crossed the line in 1:18:04. This works out at a 5:57 average.