The Inverness Half is always a tough race, coming early in March and therefore necessitating some serious motivation to train through the dark winter months. This year I managed to get a good start to the training, incorporating speed sessions and hill reps on top of the longer runs, though it all fell apart when I was struck down with flu and couldn’t run for around three weeks.
There was still a bit of time before the race so I got back into the swing of it and ready for the event. I first tackled this race in 2004 and this was my tenth year here, though it had been 10 years since I got my personal best here in 2005 at 1hour 36min 2secs (clock time). I knew I had trained better than I had in years but with that gap in my training wasn’t sure if the PB was realistically on the cards.
I paced my race reasonably well, sticking inside my 7.15min miles I would need to beat it for the first half of the race but a couple of slower miles towards the end knocked any realistic chance of today being the day! However, I was delighted to break 1:40.00 which I hadn’t done for a long time and I finished on the nose of 1:39.00 in 306th position out of a record field of around 1800.
My wife Meg took part in the Inverness Half – her first half marathon since having our two kids – and finished in what she is proudly describing as a ‘personal worst’ of 2hrs 11mins! Her cousin Ian finished just seconds ahead of me, still a couple of minutes behind the world-record breaking mascot runners!
