Rock 'n' Roll Edinburgh

Yesterday I finished my second race, and this time, it was on my home turf. Beautiful, sunny Edinburgh!

The weather is always like this. Honest!

Conditions were pretty perfect, the sun was shining but there was a fair nip in the air. A bit on the chilly side if you were standing around, but once you got moving the cool breeze was really refreshing.

Mr MFC and I gathered at the starting line. Yup, despite medical advice to keep off his sore foot, he decided to run. I would have scolded him for it, but I am hardly one to talk. When I lined up for my last race, I had a sore throat and a tight chest. But, just like me, he doesn't let a little niggle keep him away from an event.

Still, I tried my best to be protective. "Now, seen as you haven't been running in a while," I said, finger wagging and all, "it's more important than ever that you PACE YOURSELF. If you want, you can stick with me for the first 5km, then if you're feeling good, you can run off at your own pace."

Mr MFC nodded solemnly, but after the starting gun fired, I could tell he was having none of it. He wanted to run at his own pace from the beginning, and unfortunately, his pace is a lot faster than mine. After about 500m he was nothing but a dot in the distance.

He wasn't the only one. For the first km or so, everyone around me was drifting forward. I was being overtaken en masse. But, the 'start slow and steady' strategy served me well in Paris, so I wasn't going to change it just to save face.

Instead, I let a knowing smirk flicker across my lips and muttered under my breath, "yup, see you all again at the 10th kilometre!"

Sure enough, the pack started to slow down, and I started to pick them off one by one. It was satisfying overtaking runners that had raced past me in the opening stretch, and from about the 2nd kilometre to the 16th, I felt pretty good.

Snapped on Daddy-cam!

It was a huge boon when I saw my Mum and Dad at around kilometre 10. I stopped momentarily for hugs and such, but I was soon on my way again. "I've got a personal best to beat!" I shouted at them over my shoulder as I ran off.

I looked at my watch. I was making really good time. I had cracked 10k in just over an hour. My official Parisian time was 2 hours 22 minutes, and at the halfway point, I was on track to beat it.

But it was a tough course. While the first half was relatively flat, the second half was chock full of ups and downs. We went though Holyrood park, a familiar training route for me, but it was odd running along the old roads in a completely different context. Then we turned into the Old Town, and I started to pay for my ambitious pace earlier.

I hit the wall. My breath became harder to catch and my legs started to feel heavy. Despite this, I powered on. I noticed a lot of my fellow runners stop and walk, but I kept running.

I think it's a stupid, personal, psychological thing, but I have never stopped to walk in the middle of a run since I completed the Couch to 5k. I have just got this idea lodged in my brain that if I stop to walk, I'll never start running again. I'm sure it's a completely ludicrous notion but that's why you'll never see me walking until I have crossed that finish line.

A goal time started to form in my head with around 6km to go - I reckon that if I pushed hard right until the very end, I could complete the course in under 2 and a quarter hours.

I started to do the maths in my head - I was running a pace of around 6.30 minutes per km. If I kept that pace up then pushed a little harder at the end, the 2.15 goal was achievable.

But, the constant up and downs of the Old Town took its toll. Every time I looked down at my Garmin, I could see my initial strong pace slip away. 6.49 per km, 6.58 per km, 7.04 per km.

Ah screw it, I thought. I was shattered. If I could beat my Parisian time, which I was still well on track to do, I would be happy. I resigned myself to my new goal, and plodded along fairly contently.

I don't know what happened, I must have got a second wind or something, but with 2km to go my pace started to pick up again. Soon enough, I was running a solid 6 min per kilometre. At 2 hours 5 minutes in, a little glimmer of hope appeared at the back of my mind. If I pushed it, I mean, REALLY pushed it, I could maybe pull the 2.15 goal off.

As I turned the corner onto the Royal Mile, I could hear spectators shouting "It's downhill until the finish!" My face cracked into a grin. If there's one thing I know how to do, it's how to milk those downhills for all that they're worth.

I lengthened my stride, shifted my body weight forward and let gravity do the rest. Soon I was weaving in and out of the slower runners, every so often glancing at my Garmin to check that I was on schedule. My pace shrank to a mere 5.18 per km. For me, that's fast. REALLY fast.

As I approached the bottom of the Royal Mile, the downhill started to flatten out, but I refused to break pace. With 500m and around two and a half minutes to go, I was going at a full on sprint. My legs were screaming, my chest was fit to burst, but I kept going. By the time I was on the finishing stretch, my eyes were fixed on my Garmin. I watched the timer count up to 2 hours, 15 minutes. I had mere seconds to go. I kept going, and swept across the finish line with my face contorted into a fierce, rabid snarl.

I looked down at my watch one final time, and stopped the timer.

2 hours, 14 minutes, and 57 seconds.

I had made it, with 3 seconds to spare.

I let a high pitched cry of joy escape from my lungs. To hell with it, the people who had just seen me finish already knew that I was mental.

The next few minutes were a blur. I let my jellied legs take me through the finishers pen, where I collected my medal, wolfed down a couple of cereal bars and a banana, picked up a bottle of Powerade and let the marshals snip the official timing chip off my shoe.

My official time, incidentally, was 2:14:54. Three seconds quicker than my Garmin time. Mr MFC came in at 2 hours 4 minutes, which for him is slow, but considering he was recovering from an injury, it's certainly not to be sniffed at.

Before the Rock 'n' Roll, I thought that Paris had been my peak. I thought that in France, I was taken over by some mystical force that caused me to perform outwith my means, and I would never be able to pull a stunt like that ever again.

Clearly, happily, I was mistaken. This isn't my peak. This is just the beginning. While a sub-2:15 half marathon is a fantastic achievement for me today, five years from now I hope that I will be able to look back and laugh at such a paltry time.

With the right training, and the right mindset, I reckon a sub 2 hour marathon is totally achievable. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not this year, but in my lifetime, I reckon I can definitely do it.

And as for the full marathon distance? Well, watch this space.

You ain't seen nothing yet.