Stroud half marathon 2019

Stroud half marathon was my fifth half marathon of 2019 and my 19th half marathon in a lifetime. After a day of torrential rain, the forecast was for sunny and cold, which led to the inevitable wardrobe stresses. It was 2 degrees with frost on the ground when I got up at 5.15am. After much careful deliberation, I opted for my three quarter length leggings and my parkrun 100 T-shirt. Normally for that temperature, I would have gone with long sleeves, but with it being sunny, I thought short sleeves would be fine. I put tracksuit bottoms, a hoodie and gloves on for the walk from the car park.

Last year, my husband really struggled with Stroud, so he was back to avenge his demons. My brother-in-law, who normally runs with us, had decided to give this one a miss. Since struggling at Cheltenham the other week (to be honest, we both struggled), my husband had come up with about 100 different ‘strategies’ for Stroud. On half marathons, I only ever have one strategy – run as fast as I can. This time, the strategy was for him to run a steady 8 minutes 20 seconds per mile. After a long toilet queue and a far-more-organised-than-previous-years bag drop, we found ourselves at the start line, freezing in the shade.

We hadn’t planned to run together and I don’t tend to run a steady pace on a half marathon, but I can manage 8 minutes 20, so we did run together.

The first few miles, through Stonehouse and then Standish went incredibly quickly. Having run the course twice before, I’ve got a pretty good memory of it all. We kept running at a good, steady pace. The sun was glorious, but not too hot. The conditions were perfect.

Anyone who knows the Stroud area will know that it’s definitely not flat. So the Stroud half marathon course goes up and down. Sometimes that feels hard. This time, it didn’t.

There are no road closures at Stroud, which can feel a little bit treacherous at time. That’s why there’s an absolute ban on headphones, unlike most races where they just advise you don’t use them. My husband and I always run with headphones and always listen to Matt and Mollie on the Radio 1 weekend breakfast show on a Sunday morning. Yet it was fine running without it. I think it helped that we ran together. We didn’t talk a lot, but we could talk a bit when we wanted to.

Just before six miles, the route goes up the A38, which is a busy main road. And it’s uphill all the way for three quarters of a mile. There’s just a row of cones protecting you from traffic and you can run no more than two abreast, but it’s better to run in single file. It’s not ideal for overtaking. My husband complained that the lack of overtaking slowed our pace down, but I suspect we would have slowed down anyway, what with it being a hill.

Then it’s downhill a bit and over the M5 for a second time. There is a lot of countryside with no spectators, but there are also lots of spectators in the more built-up areas, with every small child offering jelly babies. I suspect small children like to offer jelly babies because they like to eat them themselves. The water stops aren’t very well spaced – with one at 4.5 miles, one at 7.5 miles and the last one at 9 miles. Luckily, with it not being too hot, we didn’t need much water. Water was in recyclable (presumably) plastic cups, rather than bottles. It is VERY hard to drink from a cup while running.

After crossing the M5 for the second time, it wasn’t long before we were back on the A419, the main road that goes all the way to the finish line. That’s another treacherous road where you need to run in single file, with just a few cones to protect you from traffic. I nearly ran into a cone and squealed, alerting the man behind that there was a cone there and preventing him from running into it too!

At nine miles, the route diverts around an industrial estate. Some people find this boring, but I don’t. It’s not even in the same ballpark as Cheltenham racecourse. There’s a choir singing at the entrance to the industrial estate, so you pass them twice. They were singing This is Me, followed by Toto’s Africa, which I’m led to believe by my kids is something of a meme. We applauded the choir as we ran past and they applauded us. It’s little things like that, and the marshals, wearing inflatable horses, which really raise your spirits.

Not that our spirits needed raising much. We felt on top of the world. The run felt very comfortable and the sun was shining.

After the industrial estate, there’s ‘only a parkrun’ to go. It’s basically a very long home straight. To be honest, it did feel longer than expected, but I could see that we were on for a good time. It’s slightly uphill towards the finish line, but we were cruising. This is where my husband had really struggled last year. In fact, he’d struggled through most of it.

As we hit 12 and a half miles, we just got faster and faster. I felt so strong. We passed several people and my pace got up to 6 minutes 40 per mile. I felt like I could have gone further and faster.

Stroud half marathon was my fifth half marathon of the year and it was definitely my best. I’d run one as a training run for the marathon, one as recovery from the marathon and one was never supposed to be fast.

We finished in one hour 49 minutes and 24 seconds, which is my second best half marathon time ever. Even more important than that, it felt really good. And my husband had exorcised his Stroud demons.