Leith Hill Half Marathon

In the end I opted to give Saturday's 10k a miss and concentrate all my efforts on the Leith Hill 1/2m. If I'd gone for both races in one weekend I wouldn't have done justice to either.

As it happens, the half marathon on Sunday was a superb race. The weather was perfect - sunny and dry and not too cold for the time of year. The race started from a school just outside Dorking and I arrived about an hour before it was due to start so had plenty of time to register and prepare.

And to get everyone into the right mood, the organisers had arranged a little curtain raiser in the form of a 'Wife Carrying Race' which was held 30 minutes before the main event. It was great fun to watch but looked pretty hard work for the carriers, some of whom were also running the half marathon!
Here's a video that I made of the wife carrying event.


My target for the main race was to beat last year's time of 2 hours and 2 minutes, so I set off at a slightly faster pace than I was comfortable with on the basis that I could relax a bit on the return leg which is essentially all downhill. The ground underfoot was fairly dry for the most part but where there were stretches of mud and water I decided to run straight through them rather than lose time just to avoid getting wet feet.

The mile markers came and went pretty quickly and I was soon clambering up the last couple of steep hills before reaching the tower at Leith Hill. There was a brief chance to take in the views towards the South Downs before turning around and heading back again. I checked my time at the halfway point and saw that I'd taken 1 hour and one minute. So, in theory, I had to be in with a good chance of a new pb for the course.

The return leg was much easier and I managed to race down the tracks and footpaths at a pretty decent speed. The last mile, however, had a sting in it's tail in the form of a very hard climb which had the effect of reducing everyone to a walk and adding valuable seconds to the overall time. But once at the top of the killer hill it was a sprint to the finish and a very satisfying time of 1 hour 56 minutes - over 6 minutes faster than last year.

And I'll be back next year for an attempt at getting under 1 50'.