Manchester Half Marathon 2018 - Race Recap
As evidenced by these pictures, the last part REALLY hurt :’D unfortunately they only took pictures at the finish line so this is all I have. I promise I wasn’t this miserable for the whole race lol. This is going to get long so cookies to anyone who actually reads it :D
My mum and I took the train to Manchester early on Saturday morning, then spent some time exploring the city before picking up my bib and race package. We eventually made our way to the hotel, which was expensive-ish because I booked the room quite late (didn’t know for sure that mum was coming until like two weeks ago) and not many hotels were left. Long story short, the hotel was AWFUL – the room was dirty and smelled moldy, the shower was disgusting, there was a draft, etc. It was just bad. But as there wasn’t really much to do about it, we just went out pretty much right away again. We had a nice dinner at a vegetarian asian restaurant I’d picked beforehand, then went back to the hotel for an early night. I was feeling a little stuffy and sniffly, and started worrying I might get sick. It took me forever to fall asleep because I just kept worrying about getting sick, about my knee (it hadn’t hurt for a few days at that point but I still hadn’t properly run on it), about the race conditions etc. as you do.
When the alarm went off at 6 am, I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. It got a little better after breakfast though. I was so glad to leave that freaking hotel room that I didn’t even mind the drizzle and cold outside at first, especially because it wasn’t as bad as the weather report had predicted and at least it wasn’t as windy anymore. We got to the athlete village with a lot of time to spare. I went for a short warm-up after getting everything else done, while my mum went to look for a good place to watch me later. By the time I made it to my start wave, it had started raining a bit more. It got steadily worse over the next 25 minutes, which is how long it took for my start wave to make our way to the actual starting line (the system was weird and everything took ages). I was so grateful when we finally started because I was really starting to get cold. I started out sticking with the 2:00 pace group, but quickly realised they were running slower than the target pace should be (according to my watch, but it’s usually really accurate). I was feeling good and had the splits written on my hand anyway, so I ditched them after only 1 km. The first mile marker confirmed that my watch was correct and I kept going, settling nicely into the pace. Until ~the halfway point, I felt SO good – just cruising along, easy breathing, fresh legs. The rain had gotten less, there were so many spectators along the way cheering us on and I was just smiling so big. The best thing was that my knee didn’t hurt at all! I almost couldn’t believe my luck. I saw my mum about 6 km in, and she asked my how I was doing – she saw me at almost the same point in my first half marathon last summer, and in that race I was already struggling so bad at that point because I went out way too fast. This time, I smiled really big and said something like “everything’s great!”, and it was.
After about 8 km, we started on a long stretch of straight road which was made a lot better by the fact that the course ran back the other side of the road after a long loop, so we could see the elite runners come back in that way. I always find it super inspiring to see the fast people race by :D actually cheered on the lead girl which was so cool.
This stretch ended and a loop around some residential neighborhoods started around 11 km, and by that time, I was starting to feel my legs. I know it was partially due to the cold, but I think it was also just accumulating fatigue. The longest tempo run I did in training was 10k, which was faster than I’d run so far but still. I told myself to just keep going, drawing strength from the fact that I was about 2 min ahead of my goal time at that point. A guy cheered me on using my name (the race bibs had names on them) which made me smile because British people pronounce my name a little wrong, but I actually love their pronunciation. Just a random little thing that helped me along :D
I don’t really remember much from about 15 km onwards, because it started to get HARD. The rain was picking up again, my legs were feeling like lead and I just couldn’t fathom going on at the pace (which was really good so far) for much longer. My watch had also been a little off the mile markers for the past few km, so I started worrying that I was going slower than the watch showed, and started to worry I wouldn’t make my goal. I slowed down a bit, which actually helped for like 1 km before I started to feel awful again.
We finally hit the stretch that was the out-and-back where I’d seen the elites pass earlier, and I looked at my watch and thought “whatever happens now, at least it’s going to be over soon” – I was really in pain at that point but still managed to keep going. The worst part was that the “biggest” hill of the course was coming up. The course is super flat, so it wasn’t an actual hill, but it still freaking hurt. I saw my mum again just after the 20 km point, and this time I didn’t say anything, but it was still nice to see her. After that, I turned a corner and saw the finish line – so close, but still so far away, it actually felt impossible to go there because I was hurting so badly. At that point, I was just telling myself to keep going, over and over. I don’t know how I made it across the finish line, but somehow I did. I stopped my watch at 1:59:xx, and my official time ended up being 1:58:54 – over one minute under my dream goal.
Race officials told us to keep walking, so I stumbled on, fighting to not throw up because I started to feel incredibly sick the second I stopped running. It took a while to regain control of my breathing but eventually the fact that I had finished sunk in :D a guy walking past me said “Thanks, you were my pacer for the last half!” which was hilarious because I literally didn’t notice him at all. I told him I was completely dying for the last mile and he laughed and agreed. Still feeling slightly dazed, I picked up my medal, finisher shirt and goodie bag, wrapped myself in the safety blanket thingy (it was still raining hard) and went to find my Mum.
We went to the nearest Starbucks where I changed into some comfy (dry!!!) clothes, inhaled the only vegan thing they had (some chocolate nut bar thingy that was actually quite good) and enjoyed a huge mug of coffee before taking the train home. The hot shower back home may have been the best one I ever had (okay not really, the first shower after camping/hiking for weeks still wins) and we went to my fave vegan burger place in the evening so that was a pretty great ending to my day. I’m so proud of this race! It wasn’t easy but I somehow pushed through, even though I thought I couldn’t. Last year when I was injured twice in a row, sidelined for months at a time, I dreamed of running again. Now I finally can <3
Also fun fact: I trained for this race in 8 different countries. Heh.
