Edinburgh Half Marathon

Race Time: 01:53:38. Really happy with the time

Friday 26th May – The wife, dog and I did the 3 hour drive up to Edinburgh. We had 3 nights booked at this campsite. We met our friends The Gibson’s here, as Paul was doing the race with me. The campsite was 5 miles outside of Edinburgh, and a mere 5 minute walk from the beach. A great location.

Saturday 27th May – A nice relaxing day, lots of dog walking and chilling. I do like a good drink when camping. Beers and Port are the usual. However I stayed dry, for race preparation.

Sunday 28th May – Race Day

6am – Got up and had a KETONE.io, I had nothing else for breakfast. We then made our way to a local bus stop to catch public transport into town. The buses were regular and pretty cheap. We had a rough idea of where we needed to get off, but it was pretty obvious as there were loads of other runners on the bus. The start line was easy to find, and there were plenty of toilets. I had a bag with a change of clothes. The baggage trucks again were easy to find and efficiently organised by race number.

8am – The race started close to the city centre but not in the main area. Then you started running out of Edinburgh. So you saw none of the city attractions. The first few miles we pretty boring really, just running through streets. My main focus was on avoiding people as the roads were pretty narrow for the amount of people.

Paul and I agreed to try to run just under 9 minute miles to start with. We accomplished this pretty easily, and I had to rein myself in a bit. After 6 miles or so we reached a beach promenade, which was my favourite stretch of the race. I was feeling pretty good so I decided to increase my pace a little. I ran the rest of the race at between 8:30 and 8:45 minute miles.

Nothing much else to report, the route was a bit average to be honest. I especially did not like the last 3 miles, which was an out an back section. So you could see people on the finishing stretch, yet you knew you still had a number of miles left to run.

10:30am. As the race finished no where near Edinburgh. So you had to buy a ticket for an official shuttle bus. To be fair it was organised well. However the buses were about a 15 minute walk from the race finish. Which seemed a bit harsh on the runners. Once in town, we had a couple of pints to dissect our performances and got the bus back to the campsite.

Monday 29th May – Packed up the tent and travelled home.

Conclusion – Very happy with my time, the route was nothing more than average. With a route change, for example if the race finished at the castle it could probably be one of the most famous Half Marathons in the world.

Wore: Skins Compression and Shamma Warrior Running Sandals.

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