Well lordy lordy lordy. The best laid plans gang oft aglay. And aglay the training certainly went. Nothing but aglay. As I survey the activities on runkeeper over the last 6 weeks - having clocked 120km+ every month since December, the grand total in June was just 32km ... made up of 2 park runs and 3 lots of twittens.
It all seems to have gone wrong from a run up Caburn on 26 May ... when an otherwise routine run left me with a painful ankle/base of left foot which made me fear I had plantar fasciitis. Of course I hadn't. But I eased off training. Stopped cycling to work (since bike had puncture). Added on about 5lbs in weight. My mojo had gone AWOL.
Good grief ... but in all of this I never thought let's not run Pembroke. And I did indeed run it. And lots of fun it turned out to be.
So here's my run report on the Pembroke-Tenby half marathon!
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We wended our way to Pembroke via a stopover in Cardiff - visiting my niece who has lived in the city since university. And by lovely coincidence, as well as living close to a fine craft beer pub, just down the road is the parkrun. So we strolled a km to Llandaff Fields and joined in our first Welsh parkrun.
A large classic park with enough up and down to make it enjoyable underfoot, we clocked in a gentle 26 min - roughly the pace needed if we were to be around 2 hours the following day. In reality, I was just pleased to not have any foot/ankle pains after a month of tiny mileage. I recalled that when I had tried Almeria after similar low kms in the legs, I had blown up and done 2:15+
We then headed off to register in Tenby (couple of hours from Cardiff) - and thankfully the weather was not blazing sun and looked to be cloudy for the Sunday. Quite a few roads around the south Pembrokeshire lanes were closed off, since the half was just a small part of the "Long Course Weekend" - which was 3 days of swim/bike/run of Iron Man dimensions (2.4km swim in Tenby Bay on Friday; 112km cycle on Saturday; marathon run on Sunday). We were encountering the closures for the cycle leg. Registering at least brought to light that Paula's number had gone awol, so they issued her another one - albeit without her name on. Mine - "Rob 7007" - was pleasingly Bond-like.
We then took the opportunity with roads just re-opened to drive in reverse what would be the half-marathon course the next day. Some quite narrow lanes - and some steep ups and down - this was going to be more hilly than I had imagined. But equally way more beautiful with gorgeous fields, views over seas and sandy beaches ....
Pembroke has a lovely Lewesian feel to it - with almost twitten-like lanes running down from Main Street ridge that leads from massive castle (Lewes eat your heart out) to railway station (Lewes wins that contest though).
A fine collection of pubs and local shops ... we were staying in an AirBnB over the local bakers. So we feasted on pies and scones as a late lunch - and were provided with bread and eggs and juice as part of the stay anyway.
The Saturday afternoon turned hot - England women were losing in the semi-final - and we opted to enjoy the local scenery, with Freshwater West beach just down the road. What a beautiful little trip that turned out to be. Miles of sand, dunes and cool water to paddle through ...
The sun continued to shine with golden light on the Pembroke houses ... and a murmuration of rooks viewed from the Waterman's Arms, just over the water from where we would gather for the briefing in the morning.
We woke Sunday with the odd sense of having to wait until midday for the set off. The way it worked was the half marathon course is simply the second half of the full marathon (and the 10k run is the last 10k of the marathon course). So it turns out we all gather to cheer the lead marathon runners through (who are heading for sub-4 times) and then set off at noon. And we pass through the 10k start at Manorbier, and get cheered on by the 10k runners in our turn. A really nice touch!
Not only that, but a samba band leads the half marathon folks up through the town to the start. Since we were staying on Main Street, we ducked out of this and took the opportunity for last minute water/toilet stop in the flat. This was definitely the closest I've ever stayed to a run start - since it was literally on the doorstep.
Not sure why I wasn't more nervous in retrospect - but our race strategy this time was to go out gently, enjoy the views, even stop and take pics (that of course never happened) ... times didn't matter at all
En masse we were stretched out along Main Street - marathon runners (which in large number were folks who had also swum and biked over the last two days as well) to our left. Among the half runners were good number of tri athletes who had biked 70km the day before ... And then the samba band shut up, the air horn sounded and we were off.
Despite best hopes, the clouds had lifted and we were now running in midday sunshine. The water stops we thought would be key. But with seemingly all the villages, houses, farms along the way all offering their own supplies we were very well provided for. Indeed the best of them had set up garden sprinklers to cool off the runners
We settled into a 5:50 or so pace along the flat, which was comfortable ... albeit the heat was not. Some super skinny tri types raced past us at first, since we had not been grouped by time in the samba parade ...
Then turning south the first climb kicked in and it was more than expected ... but with Moyleman experience we found ourselves slowly passing others around us. These were undulating lanes though and with various turns we lost and gained height without obvious purpose. But the roads shifted east again and views over Freshwater East and towards Manorbier were lovely.
The first main plunge down into Manorbier bay meant we nearly hit sea level - and climbed back up into the village where the 10K runners provided the lift of cheering us on. We had somehow done 11k and in just over an hour ... if we maintained this pace we'd be sub-2 which seemed unlikely, but I felt quite good and strong at this point. The 10k cheering spurred us on, but we knew we had a climb ahead.
And the climb up to the Ridgeway started ... many folks around us were walking, indeed it was more of a mass walk uphill, than a run at this point. For some reason I just find it dispiriting to walk ... so we plogged on up the hill.
And this is the point at which it started hurting ... the Ridgeway was undulating still, and what should have been a glorious "top of world" feeling, seemed more of a hot purgatorial slog, with me praying for shade ...
The downhill was at least downhill, but it was steep and pounding on the legs. The final 2km hove into sight and we had reached the roads into Tenby. My spirit had gone and even a gentle uphill climb seemed more than I could face. Paula having herself done more proper prep than me in the preceding month was still in fine form, but I was done in, and I slowed.
"Just try picking up you feet" she said by way of encouragement, I won't repeat here what I said, but it was not a positive response. I then started to walk and thought this would mean masses of time added, as runners began to pass me. It seemed to be an age - but Garmin tells me it was 7min/km on average for the last 2 kilometres, rather than what would have been an acceptable steady 6min/km ...
The final 500m in the heart of Tenby was filled with cheering crowds and I raised my pace to what passed for a sub-5/km finish. And we were done.
The time of 2:05 was not a bad one, all things considered - indeed it meant Paula had got a top 10 finish for her age group.
We staggered around the narrow lanes where they had medals, food and beer laid out. The streets were thronged with people - and we decided to head off for a paddle in the sea from one of the many beaches that surround the town
Our return was then in a train home - covering those same 13 miles in a little under 20 minutes ....
And in the evening we ended up as the only drinkers in a perfect pub garden in Pembroke ...
Reflections: we'll be back again next year
