Garioch Half Marathon

My Garmin page for it - Time 2:18:20


It all went quite well, really. First off, the other Lucy came and got me, which takes a lot of the worry away as she is super reliable and punctual, and I didn't have to think about not being able to park, if worst came to worst, she could have just dropped me off outside.

This is Lucy and our daughters (and their hats) in the sports centre beforehand. Mine is on the far left, it's all about the emo/wearing black thing with her at the moment. They were all very good to put up with 2+ hours of hanging about.

So, so cold.
Standing around at the beginning, I wondered if I was wearing enough. Lots of people were wearing jackets and buffs, but after two miles I was warm, on the first uphill I was boiling, but then on higher ground with stronger winds, I got very cold. I presume this lady in her little shorts on the right did, too.

I was surprised at the lack of water stations. I had taken my own, but the first wasn't for 7 miles, and then it was just little cups. The second was around 10 miles, and again, little cups. Very crap.

As it was, the chip timing was broken, so I know my Garmin time is right as I started it when I went over the start line, not when the race started. This pic shows the start line, I was down by the blue garage door, so took me a little while to get up to the line as people were walking up, so the time they post in the results is wrong as far as I'm concerned.

The medal is nice, and there was also a T-shirt, and a banana and bottle of water (not pictured, I ate the banana when I got home)

I'm quite happy with my time. I had wanted 2:17 as that was a good 30 secs off each mile, as my best time in training recently had been 2:23, but still, not too far off for quite a hilly, freezing course.