Bungay Black Dog Half Marathon (Suffolk, UK) - personal best 1:39:15

Adam encouraged me to run The Black Dog half marathon. Living over 7,300ft makes the prospect of a run at sea level very attractive.

With a respectably late start to the event we got going. It was pretty crowded for a while and difficult for Adam, Natale and me to stay together but after half a mile or so we were together and had some space. Despite the space I was far from settled. My heartrate was already around 170 (where it would stay for the whole race) and the pace was 7:15 min/mile and faster.

As we passed other runners we got a bit spread out again with Natale a little way behind. Adam did his usual thing of running with me for a bit and then dropping back to run with Natale. After 2 or 3 miles of this he decided to head off into the distance. As ever he encouraged me to keep up and had briefed Natale to pace me I think, when she caught me. Natale is a very solid runner and I fully expected to see her catch me throughout the rest of the race, especially towards the end but today I managed to stay ahead.

The course had some hills over the first 6 or 7 miles and was facing in to the wind with the remaining 6 miles mainly flat. For about 10 miles I was pacing at 7:15 min/mile pace and up to about 8 min/miles on the hills. This was averaging out just less than 7:30 pace, which I was very happy with.

By the 11th mile, as the course became easier I was disappointed to fade badly only just managing to stay below 8 min/mile pace for the last 3 miles.

My time from the official results was 1:39:15 but the actual time, allowing for crowds at the start, was probably around 1:38:55. I placed 67th of 445.

All entrants got a pretty cool lump of glass with a 3D image of a black dog in in it, which was pretty nice.

After the race I went for sunday lunch with Mum and Fred. Mum cooked the roast potatoes without fat for me due to my Survivor Challenge's no fat week.