tl;dr

On Sunday 3rd March 2013, I ran Bath half marathon in aid of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research. I raised £335.00 with an extra £75.00 from gift aid.

I ran in memory of my Uncle Arwyn who was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia November 2011, he sadly passed away on the 5th of April 2012.

Background

I used to be a sprinter in athletics at school, along with running a few long distance races. Since then, I hadn’t done any proper running until 2010. This was when I was living in Bath, and training for the half marathon in 2011.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend. After this, I took a year off running and concentrated more on my Cycling. In 2012, I decided to start running again and was determined to attend the 2013 Bath Half to make up for the missed event.

Training

My initial training consisted of a running between one and five miles per day, with a longer run on the weekend. Eventually I was running ten miles every Sunday. Most of this was all thrown away during my year off.

My second attempt at training consisted of running three to five miles every other day. I increased the distance slowly and did a trial half marathon run two weeks before the main event.

Injuries

Annoyingly, I suffered from knee problems the second time around. This is quite common, and there are exercises that you can do to reduce knee pain. Either see a physiotherapist or Google it, I did the latter.

The route

I trained on reasonably flat routes, Bath is not flat. Thankfully, I had trained enough to overcome the elevation on the course.

Below is the map we were provided for the event.

Post-Race

After the race I had a leg massage, and would recommend that you do the same. I was hungry but couldn’t each much. Refuelling consisted of flap jacks, soup and a pint of orange juice.

Overall

I achieved a time of 01:47 which was a personal best. I aim to beat this whilst running the Cardiff half marathon in October 2013. Thanks again to those who sponsored me.