Race report on the Blickling Half Marathon on 19th October 2025: did I do well or not?
Bob Lyddon
I wonder how many other runners get left with the feeling that they could have done better. My daughter beat me on Sunday, but then she is 31 years younger.
I finished in 2 hours 13 minutes exactly, compared to 1:57 at last year’s Cambridge Half on a much easier course and in a temperature that was eight degrees lower, and with no wind at all. It is difficult to put a number to how many minutes these factors might cost you, but I don’t think it is sixteen.
What were the other inhibitors? I was carrying hip and knee injuries at the start of my 11-week training programme, so I had to manage those in order to run at all, and that was actually a big success: I am injury-free now for the first time since June last year. I had to increase my blood pressure medication in early August, as well as making some big diet changes, and I was reluctant to push myself into Training Zones 5 and 6 for fear of dropping dead: I think I felt this reluctance on Sunday both in terms of lower strength/stamina, and lower confidence. Maybe losing several kilos on the new diet was also strength-reducing.
The confidence issue was whether I could go the distance without any walking, and I think once you start having those doubts, they become self-fulfilling. On a couple of training runs I got really over-heated, or dehydrated, or at one point dizzy, so I felt I had to keep the heart rate and intensity down, which meant a lower pace. Training for Cambridge is over the winter, and it was much easier to put in an intense session in those temperatures. All that, aggravated by the confidence issue, meant stopping a couple of times, and I had not mastered the using of my new hydration vest on the move: I bolted down my jelly babies and water while walking uphill.
Also, I hate doing weights, lunges, push-ups and all that stuff and no outside circumstances are to blame for my not doing that, which is an essential part of the training for an event like this. I’m going to force myself to do some of this every week whether I am preparing for a big event or not.
