It was a cold crisp sunny Sunday morning that greeted Dan Thompson and me (Martin Bateman) as we headed to St Neots, Cambridgeshire on the quest of half marathon personal bests and in Dan’s case, the main goal was a sub 75 minute championship time for guaranteed entry to the London Marathon next year.
The race is run over a very rural undulating course with picturesque vistas of dominant sky and rolling farmland all around. Dan and I started together holding 4th and 5th for the first couple of miles. After about 3 miles I slightly moved away and was joined by the guy who was going to stay by me the whole race. This was a similar scenario for Dan who had the same company the majority of his race but a little way behind. Three men had disappeared into the lead from the off with me swapping 4th and 5th until after 6 miles one of the leaders slowed right up and we passed him. The next target was the guy in second who looked to be struggling but seemed to keep rallying and was still some way in the distance. As the course ramped up again the gap dropped and I also dropped the guy with me. In the meantime Dan was still holding good pace just a bit off his target. I thought maybe I was secure in 3rd with 2 and half miles to go and targeting 2nd spot, however I was joined again by the same guy, and despite going about 5.35 pace he went straight by. It was then the final push to the line knowing I was on a good time. All the gaps stayed even until with 800m to go I took third place from the guy that had been second most of the race and I was in hot pursuit of second. He was motoring too though so third was good enough and a PB of 74.16 for good measure. Then it was a case of watching the clock countdown hoping Dan wouldn’t be too far back. He knocked about 55 seconds off his previous best; however he was agonisingly 15 seconds past 75 mins finishing in 6th place.
Full results here.
Video here.