Weston Super Half

My husband, brother-in-law and I ran the Weston Super Half ask the Weston-super-Mare half marathon the other day. It took place on the exact day Tewkesbury half marathon usually takes place. But Tewkesbury was cancelled this year (I suspect it won’t be back). I replaced it with Forest of Dean half marathon, but then my brother-in-law said he was doing Weston Super Half so I decided to do that too.

Running along the sand and seafront and finishing on the pier! What’s not to love?

Weston-super-Mare is the ‘local’ seaside for us in Gloucestershire – it’s just over an hour away in good traffic. It’s actually the furthest I’ve travelled for a half marathon. Back in 2011, I did Bath and Bristol half marathons, but they were a lot of hassle in terms of travel etc. So I started to just run local races, such as Cheltenham and Stroud half marathons.

Weston Super Half is a much smaller race than Bristol or Bath, so it was no hassle.

The race started at 9.15am and we arrived in Weston at just after 8. We easily parked in a multi-storey car park close to the start line.

After many weeks of cold and rain, the forecast was for bright sunshine all morning. It was cold, grey and windy when we arrived. Foolishly, we opted not to use the bag drop and to leave our bags in the car. Which also meant leaving our jumpers in the car. We were frozen! And the bag drop would have been zero hassle.

There were about eight portaloos and the queue was already long at 8.15am. Needless to say, it just got longer. There were a few public toilets you could pay 20p to use. I chose to do this – and the flush was broken and there was no soap.

The start pen at Weston was small, but perfectly formed. There were pacers for 1:30, 1:45, 2:00, 2:15 and 2:30. My husband and I lined up between the 1:45 and 2:00 hour pacers, and my brother-in-law moved forward to the 1:45.

My brother-in-law and I both run races by starting off fast and gradually slowing down. My husband used to do that too, but has struggled with it in recent years, so decided he was just going to run a steady 8:30 min/ mile and was definitely not going to run with me! (Sometimes we plan to run together, sometimes we end up running together even when we’ve set off separately.)

The race started, my brother-in-law vanished instantly and I left my husband behind.

Weston Super Half starts with two little laps by the seafront in the centre of town. At this point, I was getting closer and closer to the 1:45 pacer, which I knew was too fast for me. My watch was showing me I was running at paces like 7:15 and 7:30 min/ miles. Also too fast for me!

At 2 miles, the course goes onto the beach. Weston has hard sand and the sea is always miles out. I still found running on sand quite hard and the 1:45 pacer started disappearing. After a mile, we left the beach and arrived in a lovely village called, worryingly, Uphill. It wasn’t long before Uphill went up hill, but it wasn’t too bad.

After Uphill, the course goes through some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve ever run through.

Then, at 7 miles, it was back onto the beach. By the time I came off the beach at 8 miles, my legs were really hurting and I was slightly worried. Then I saw my sister and my niece and, by 9 miles, the aches were gone. My husband caught me up at 8 miles and we ran together, but not together, for most of the way after that. He would go ahead of me, then I would go ahead of him.

The forecast bright sunshine never happened, which was probably a good thing. The cloud started to thin at 5 miles, but it didn’t even achieve ‘hazy sunshine’ status.

After the beach, the course went back past the start line and the pier. At this point, we saw the two winners heading for the finish line on the pier, accompanied by a motorbike and the timing car. Then there was a long wait until we saw any other leading runners. The 3rd placed finisher was the 1st lady! She had her own motorbike accompanying her too.

But we still had four miles to go. We headed out of town along the seafront and then a gradual climb. This was quite a long out and back – out from 9 miles to 11 miles, then back from 11 miles to 13 miles.

Just before the turning point, we saw my brother-in-law. After his flying start, he wasn’t far at all in front of us. Between 11 and 13 miles was mainly downhill, but with a couple of small up hills that I hadn’t noticed on the way out. As we got back to the outskirts of town, the pier looked really close – but that was the end of the pier. The start of the pier was round a curved bit of seafront and was still about three quarters of a mile away.

My husband was pulling ahead, but I knew I was on for a good time. I was being driven by a brilliant playlist my husband had made for me (you can read about that here). It was playing Levellers’ One Way as I finished.

At 13 miles, the course goes onto the Grand Pier. The finish line wasn’t really that clear, so I just kept running until the end, where there was a Scout giving out medals.

My finish time was 1:49:49 – my fastest time since 2019 (possibly even 2018) and I was 6th in my age category of women aged 45-49, 319th overall and 47th female. My husband was 20 seconds faster than me in the end and my brother-in-law less than two minutes ahead of me.

We really enjoyed Weston Super Half and will be back next year.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

• Five water stops at miles 2, 5, 8, 10 and 12. Mile 8 also has electrolytes
• Toilets at the start – terrible!
• Parking – plentiful in paid public car parks