The night before my half marathon on Sunday I was reading an article in this month’s Runners World posing the question, “Which is the hardest distance?” The answer, as you might guess, is that it depends: what you’ve trained for, what your body is adapted for or suited to, and whether or not you prefer the eternity-in-a-few-minutes of a 800m or the drip-feed torture of a marathon.
For me, though, for the last year or so it’s been the half marathon. On a bad day, it combines the “god this hurts already and it’s only two miles in!” of a 10km with the mental agonies of a marathon (“STILL seven miles to go??”). I’d developed a bit of a block around them, and it was by far my ‘weakest’ distance when it came to race times vs expectations.
Well I’m glad to say, no more! After getting a PB in Cambridge half a few weeks ago, I took another minute-plus off it again at the lovely Paddock Wood half yesterday, finishing in fourth place in 1hr 25min and getting a vet trophy to boot. It’s a great race, in beautiful Kent surroundings and a goody bag including chocolate AND crisps. I suppose it was also a small risk, three weeks before London - not in terms of recovery but more that if I’d had a bad race, it might have knocked my confidence. Happily, though, it paid off.
So, how was your weekend running - and what, for you, is the worst distance? I think for many distance runners the shorter races are a blur of agony - we feel like we shouldn’t have any problem with them, as obviously we can run much much further, but haven’t done the required specific training to do them justice ...
