Bideford Half Marathon

Sunday 6th March saw the Westgates at Bideford for the half marathon. I (LW) had been looking forward to this as perusal of previous results showed a strange anomaly that I had run more marathons than halfs, so to put this right we confidently entered a few at the beginning of the year. Sadly in what is almost becoming a tradition Richard fell victim to ill-health in the weeks before the race and was recently only able to run round Hestercombe with me (rather than race it). This time he wasn’t even able to run at all, but enjoyed having the time to read his book for an hour before leaving the car to watch the winners cross the line.

My training hadn’t gone particularly well with only a few longer training runs so it was with some trepidation I found myself on the start line. Or, I should say several yards back from the start line as it took nearly a minute to get to it. The first half of the race is on a main road and follows the river inland for 7 miles and was undulating. A bit surprising as I thought rivers flowed downhill. After the 7 mile marker we crossed the river and turned on to the Tarka Trail. This tarmac path follows the line of a disused railway and is totally flat. Ideal for cyclists and runners who like fast times, but the terrain did look the same for the next 5 miles, broken only by a few bridges giving a change from one river bank to the other. After a long tunnel, another mile or so brought us within sight of the town of Bideford and not long then to the 12 mile marker. For most of the race I had been keeping in front or a Torbay runner who I thought might be in my age group. Having narrowly beaten the 2nd FV55 by TWO seconds at Hestercombe, I didn’t want the tables turned this time. Finally we reached the point where we left the Tarka trail and went back on the road, with countdown markers every 100m for the last 800m. A good way to get to the end of a race. It also took us across the old stone bridge and along the river front with lots of crowd support including RW with camera.

For those who like the stats, having finished in a chip time of 1:48:33 this was a PB for me, my last PB being 1:54 approx at Taunton in 2007. Sadly I needn’t have worried about beating fellow runners as I was 6th FV55 with prizes for the first 3 in each category.