I rode out to the race as a warm up and felt decidedly nervous, putting on a race number ALWAYS does this to me, whether its London or New York Marathons or a local chipper race!

 
Well I raced the first few miles at sub 6min/mile and was waiting for the mushroom cloud to go up, but it never appeared spurred on by some great local support, some local runner rivalry from two of my running buddies Dave Owen and Karl Fisher and a great bit of pace sharing between me and Simon Riley (Leamington AC) who was running exactly the same pace as me (That can really help you to hold a steady pace when the chips are down).
 
I held on to the sub 6min/mile pace and came home in 36:26 which is a pb and an average pace of 5:51min/mile.
 
The winner was Nick Corker (Royal Sutton AC) who ran an impressive 32:37 followed by an old team mate Ashley Hurdman in 33:20. My position was 24th Place Overall and 2nd in Category, thats a 1st and 2nd from my last 2 races so I’m holding form. This also tells me I’m in the same shape as last year when I ran a 1:20 Half marathon PB and with the UKA Half Marathon Championships coming up in 2 weeks I’m happy with where I’m at fitness wise. Onwards and upwards!

You can follow David on Twitter @Irontwiglet