Autumn Blickling Half Marathon – 16/10/2022
I entered this EPIC race when signing up to the Spring version around the Blickling estate which was an enjoyable, mainly trail, sunny experience in March. This autumn version is a different course, all on road starting & finishing in Aylsham and the first time for me.
Spotting a few Jags while waiting for the start including Nicola (in a long toilet queue) she warned me of the hilly finish and after an organised warm up we were off. After some start errors for me this year I decided to be bold and position myself near the front of the 500 field. This paid off, as I was soon into my sub 7 min mile race pace with a nice opening downhill mile. After joining a small group and a couple of climbs reached half way in 46mins and still feeling fairly comfortable aimed for a negative second half split.
Lovely to see Elly who was marshalling and her encouragement was most welcome as we head towards Blickling and hit mile 10 in 69mins. After the last water station, I still had a couple of runners I could see in front of me and after taking another gel, tried to close them down for the last 5k, which after the NT Fisherman’s car park, hills start to kick in again. I was hanging on after the the railway bridge but managed to maintain pace on the final climb, overtaking the couple of runners before the finish. Wow that really pushed me & well done to the Jags who participated.
Really pleased I finished 23rd a minute outside my PB. A challenging but interesting course, my best half since the last Broadland Half (a race I loved & miss) 4 years ago and perhaps I’ve found an autumn race that may now replace it.
Graham Johnson
Name | Time | PB | Standard |
---|---|---|---|
Graham Johnson | 1:31:05 | First in Age Category! | Diamond |
Nicola Lambert-John | 1:35:04 | First in Age Category! | Gold |
Barry Halkyard | 1:43:48 | Yes | Silver |
Thomas Lincoln-Kemp | 1:49:09 | Silver | |
Luke Townshend | 1:52:35 | First Timer | |
Kelly Piesse | 2:16:26 | Yes |