The New Forest Half Marathon

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Eric Phimister reports on the Half Marathon he recently ran in England...

The day after stepping off the plane I ran a local 10k event.� It was meant to be a recovery run, to make sure the legs still worked after 25 hours of flying.� They worked all right, I clocked a respectable 39m25s and won a trophy for 1^st in my age group.

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Sunday dawned with the promise of a fine day, but with westerlies predicted to be increasing through the day and a maximum temperature of 19 deg C.� The start was at 11:00 am so there was no need to rush breakfast.� We arrived at the start area at 10:15 and did the usual pre-race things.

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I positioned myself at the front on the start line, along with all the other speedsters.� There were about 1600 entrants and I did not want to be caught up in the pack.� As the course was marked in miles I had to print the split times on my arm.

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Off we went, up the main High Street and into a head wind.� There were people standing 5 deep along the first half mile, all cheering and clapping.� Up and over the railway bridge and out into The Forest.� At the 3 mile mark I was slightly up on my time, but I knew I would soon lose that on the hills.� Coming up to 4 miles (mind the ponies), the slight gradient we had been running up since the start became a hill, which lasted until the 5 mile mark.� Wow, still ahead of schedule, and at last we turned away from the head wind.� There were still groups of supporters, cheering and giving words of encouragement.�

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More ponies joined the race along the road! The next mile was undulating, then rising to the highest point of the course at about 6 miles.� After another drink at half way we headed down hill into the village of Sway.� At last I could stretch my legs.� I knew it was too good to last - at the 8 mile mark, up we went again for the next mile.� Surely this had to be the last hill.� Wrong again, just a short sharp down and up.� At the 10 mile mark I was still on schedule.

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The course was fairly flat for the next 2 miles but we were running into the wind again.� My legs started to feel the effects of all the hills and I dropped about 40 seconds.� At 12 miles we were on the down-hill run to the finish and I picked up the pace to try and recover some lost time.� Turning into the final straight, I had another 600 yards to go.� Crowds lined the road again, their cheering giving my spirits a lift, and I crossed the finish line in 1h 24m 14s.

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My recovery was swift and I was able to reflect on the race.� It was a great course to run on but the undulating nature, which made it interesting, also made it hard to produce a good time. I was more than happy with my time, which saw me finish 44^th out of 1600, and 4^th in my age group.�

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Full race results can be viewed on www.nfma.org.uk