Tales from the Start Line - Hampton Court Palace Half (plus 5)

You know what the hardest thing about a LSR is?

If you said "the running"  - you're wrong. Actually running it isn't THAT hard - it's low intensity, it's often quite peaceful running in a park on a Sunday morning, and there's the vision of a gigantic breakfast and lots of beer in your future. Plus the smug feeling deep down when you casually mention to othrs that "yeah, just did 16/18/20 miles this morning"

So no, it's not the running.

It's all the other crap.

It's the revolving your weekend around the run. It's the run hanging over you from Friday (especially when venturing into uncharted territory). It's the early Saturday night, and earlier Sunday morning. It's forcing yourself to consume breakfast at 6.30am on a Sunday. It's the NO FRIGGING BEER ON A SATURDAY NIGHT!

And when you stick on the clocks going forward and losing an hour, well......

But we make our choices and stick by them. So last Saturday I was up at the unholy hour of 5.15am ("body time") aka 6.15am ("official time") as I was off to run the Hampton Court Palace Half marathon...plus 5 miles before.

I wouldn't normally run a half marathon this late in my training as it's too short, and it's often difficult to tack on the necessary mileage to make it long enough.

I made an exception though as one of my closest friends was making her half marathon debut - and given it was largely down to my urging that she was doing this, it seemed only fair that I run it with her. Thankfully the race start was close to Bushy Park which made it easy to get my 5 miles in before the start.

The race itself was - well, a mixed bag if I'm honest. The start area (at the entrance to the Palace) was chaotic to put it mildly. No segregation, inaudible announcements and no pace pens/areas to sieve out the slower runners meant the first few miles (on the narrow towpath) were pretty congested and would be very frustrating for faster runners.
The course was nice enough - 2 laps incorporating the towpath from Hampton Court Bridge to Kingston Bridge for the first lap then a meander through various parts of the Palace park and grounds. There were several sections of "switchback" which I find a little frustrating (don't like seeing everyone else so far ahead!) and there was a definite feel of the organisers trying to shoehorn the 13.1 miles into the area.
The worst aspect though was far and away the water supply. While not quite as bad as last year's Sheffield Half Marathon, the placing of the stations was bizarre. 4 miles, 4.75 miles, 10.25 miles and 12.5 miles.

Not exactly evenly spread, and most people were gasping by 10 miles (and what's the point of a station with 0.5 mile left?). If it had been a warm day it would have been a lot worse - luckily (??) it was wet and windy. The stations themselves were also undermanned. This was my 12th half marathon and the first one where I felt like there was insufficient water.

On the plus side the medal was a bit different, there was a free (cotton) T-shirt, the car parks were close enough that you didn't need a bag drop and the I got my hands on a hot cup of tea inside 15 mins of finishing thanks to the Palace café.

My time? Doesn't matter - it was a training run, and the objective was to support my friend round (by talking her ear off)

Objective completed (and inside her target time!)



Next stop Manchester......



(P.S. That was my last LSR and am now in the wonderful world of taper. Unlike last year, I should be able to enjoy this as raceday draws near!)