Leicestershire Half Marathon

My last two half marathons in October involved a few hills (Sheffield and Eyam) so on the lookout for a flat, fast Spring half, I signed up to the Leicestershire half with my partner (and also her sister and father for his ‘final’ half marathon at age 63). A 7am start and a quick trip down the M1 to Prestwold Hall, just outside Loughborough. It was brilliant sunshine, blue skies but with a really cold wind throughout the race.

 

The route was not as flat as anticipated, quite undulating (but not Eyam!) and involved quite a bit of running round a breezy race track and HGV test centre plus country roads. The start and finish was outside the Hall on a gravel path (making a sprint finish a bit challenging!) I was aiming for sub 1:35 and was running 7 min miles for the first 5 miles but realised a Pb was not on. Eventually I finished in 1:40 (5 mins behind my Sheffield pb). A nice spring race and something a bit different from the usual South Yorkshire races.