My Frozen Phoenix Half-Marathon - or How to Turn a Bad Race Into a Good One

When I first thought of writing this race report a few weeks before the race, I genuinely thought I would be boasting about a half-marathon PB and finishing the year on a high. I’m not a naturally confident person but my coach’s predictions of my finishing times this year had been fairly accurate, so when he told me to go for a 1:42 PB at the Frozen Phoenix timed event, I just said ‘Ok, boss!’. I had started to trust the process and tried to brush off the little voice that was a bit skeptical about achieving a PB at an event squeezed in between a week spent in Normandy with my mum to celebrate Christmas (with all the face-stuffing that may involve) and a week skiing in the Alps. And when I say squeezed in, I mean less than 12 hours after driving home from the Portsmouth ferry terminal and less than 6 hours before heading out to Gatwick for the next trip. But hey, I do enjoy a challenge, as you know!

So off I left home around 8am on Saturday morning, with the knowledge that training had gone well, I had hit all my target times at my speed sessions and my training had been consistent. I had also done the carb loading bit as well as I could to try and correct some of the (compulsory!) Christmas excesses. The only slight issue I was aware of was some stiffness in my left hamstring, but not anything that I had deemed worth of really worrying about. That and the fact that the event had a slightly different format as it was a 6-hour fixed time event where you could complete as many 3.28-miles laps as you wanted over that time. As I needed a half-marathon race around that date as part of my training, I needed to complete 4 laps. I had previously misread the brief and thought the full laps were 6.56 miles long, which seemed much more bearable for little lap-hater-me. Regardless, the odds appeared to be on my side.

The day was warmer than I had trained in in Normandy over Christmas so I appropriately dressed down to avoid overheating and armed with my hydration pack I lined up at the start. The race started with about half a mile of pretty unpleasant muddy conditions, which prevented me from racing at my target pace. After 1k, I was 10s slower than required. That didn’t bode well. Over the next few kilometres, I’m not quite sure what happened but I was hovering just above 5min/k, so slower than I needed to be. At my previous half-marathon (see my blog post from last month on this), my problem had been that I had started the race too fast, so I was puzzled this time to find I didn’t seem to have much in the tank that early in the race.

After a few kilometres I knew there was zero chance of me achieving my target time. This was a blow but then I had to think about how to handle this. I knew I wasn’t being lazy, I just couldn’t do any more than what I was doing then. So I decided to run ‘naked’ and not bother looking at my time going forward. I was still the female lead at that point, and I tried and kept the pace up to maintain that position. At the first lap turn at 1.64 miles, the following women were still far enough, I just had to keep it that way. So I kept running. Unfortunately I couldn’t even stick to my slower pace and had to slow down even further. At each turning point I could see the next women closing in. Then eventually I was overtaken. But I knew if I wanted to complete my half-marathon I shouldn’t try to keep my place and should just accept I couldn’t keep up with them that day. I knew I was capable of being faster, just not that day. That had to be enough. So for the rest of my race I focused on the positives, the fact I was still running, the lovely route on the Thames Path, cheering on other runners or just exchanging a smile when them every time we crossed. It was odd being in a race with other people not knowing what distance each other was running. Given that it was a 6-hr fixed event, people could choose whatever distance they wanted to run. A slightly quirky twist to it was that once you had finish your distance you had to ring an old fashion bell to notify the organisers, at which point they would record your time and award you your medal. It felt strange running a half-marathon in that environment. In less than 2 hours I was done with my half and it felt like quitting when ringing that bell. A bit like when Lazarus blows the horn during the Barkley Marathons when you have DNF’d. But my training plan called for a half-marathon race and I had to be sensible. No matter how I like ultras, I needed to focus on my Edinburgh marathon goal. Once that’s done then I can think about doing more ‘fun’ things like this one.

In spite of everything I enjoyed the race. It was well organised and the runners didn’t appear to be the run-snob type (although some were pretty fast!) and happy to spare a word or smile on the way. So Phoenix, I will be back. This time, I won’t be shooting for a half-marathon PB but run the full 6-hr event for the fun of it.

Happy New Year, and happy running everyone!