Southport Half Marathon

SOMETHING A WEE BIT DIFFERENT

Last weekend (July 6th – 8th) I took a jaunt over the border to see some very good friends I hadn’t seen for long enough. As I pencilled the date in my diary a few weeks ago, I took a sneaky peek at what races were around this time, and looking through it I was pleased to see the Southport Half Marathon was on the Sunday. Perfect timing with my marathon training due to start the next week.

A couple of calls later, the logistics were worked out and the race was entered. Travelling down on the Saturday I spent a good day in Warrington (catching a bit of the British Lions, Ladies Wimbledon Final, and Diamond League on TV as a bonus) and at 6am on the Sunday I was up and raring to go for the 50 minute drive through to Southport.

Amazing finding the place no problem I got out the car to blistering heat which worried me a bit as it was only 7.30am! A warm up and drills were next before getting to the start line, having a blether with some other runners whom I had never met, and then it was good to go with 600 plus other runners for the start of the race at 8.30am.

Advertised as a flat course, this was certainly true and for the first few miles I found myself anything between 2nd and 4th place and despite sweat pouring off me even at this early stage I did feel reasonably comfortable. The route headed towards Royal Birkdale around halfway, turns back towards the main part of town, and now sitting in 4th place I had a gap in front of me and an even bigger gap behind me to 5th. At this point I was battling to stay focused and not switch off. This is probably one of my strengths being an endurance runner however, and at the 11 mile mark I was chuffed to see some friends from Preston who hade made the trip over with the kids to cheer me on.

Finishing line in sight I made it safely in 4th place, and was pleased to see that I had clocked a time of 1.16.32. While not my fastest Half Marathon, it was one of my quickest, and speaking to some runners after the race it seems most people were around a minute or 2 down on what they would normally run so it was a worthwhile exercise for me. It’s also always nice to run against people you don’t know every now and then and Southport is a really nice place to visit, so in summary I would recommend this race.

Quick cool down, I then spent a bit of time with my friends including going for a bite to eat in a nice Italian restaurant. My football mad Preston North End supporting pal informed me that we were actually eating in a place where Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard got arrested a couple of years ago which made massive waves at the time and stats like that always interest me!

Back to Warrington I went, fantastic timing as we sat down right at the start of the Men’s Wimbledon Final. It would have been rude not to have a few beers and indulge in the fantastic food laid on for me, and when Andy Murray won (in my opinion unquestionably Scotland’s greatest ever sporting feat) we then headed to the pub to cap the day.

Full race results are here – http://www.vitalevents.co.uk/results/calendar/july-2013