After the return to shorter distance racing in the Bournemouth Bay 1/2, I was looking forward to the rotary 1/4 which shares the race route from the previous week. The race starts at Boscombe Pier, along the beach to hengistbury head and then back along a familiar path to Boscombe Pier.
Emi was doing the race as well with me, and we left registration until the day of the race and parking was a bit of a nightmare, so we found ourselves running for the start line and arriving just as the race started.
I started near the back, which meant that my pace was a bit at odds with the surrounding people. I made the mistake of going out too quickly trying to catch up with were I thought I should be to hit a good average pace to the race.
Unfortunately, this meant that around the 3mile mark, I began to flag and so I decided to treat the race as a training run and followed my usual pattern of 2.5miles at 1 minute below marathon pace, and then a minute or so at a walking pace and before starting again.
The brief reprieve around the 3 mile mark coincided with a water station so I had the opportunity to refuel and get back to it.
The second half of the race was relatively uneventful, the course is pretty flat albeit with some twists and turns as you run through a few housing estates. However, the last 300 metres or so is very downhill, meaning that I could make up some of the time that I had lost earlier in the race.
I misjudged the distance from the last corner to the finish line, meaning that my sprint finish was 100 metres instead of 50, so I crossed the line huffing and puffing, which was a rare treat as I don't usually have the energy for a burst at the end!
It was a really good race, and Emi did really well, taking 5 minutes off her previous 1/4 marathon PB.
The turnout for WRC was amazing as well with around 8 of us turning out for the race, and we even made it into the local paper!
