Hubble Bubble half marathon

Hubble Bubble is a Grim Up North Running event that I first did at the ultramarathon distance in 2018. Since I got faster over lockdown and I’ve been wondering whether I could place at a smaller event. There were spreadsheets making predictions but the half marathon distance didn’t look impossible, but not was it likely.

It was raining heavily during registration and the race start which led to big puddles along the towpath.

I had the flu a few weeks ago and I can still feel it in my chest in a little so I don’t think I’m on top form yet. But I decided to give it a go and see how it went. As we set off a pack of four runners formed in front of me but I decided to follow the plan and give it 10-15 minutes before deciding whether I should continue to push.

As it happened, a few hundred metres in one of the runners ahead got fed up with the mud and puddles and turned around. I caught the third-place runner around two kilometres in. The front two disappeared off into the distance but in the remaining three kilometres I managed to put 30 seconds into fourth place.

My watch was no help. The GPS was way off and recorded a total distance of 18.5 km. I knew the canal so well that I knew it was way off but that meant I didn’t know how fast I was running. Garmin suggested I was running around 5:15 per kilometre but in reality, I was averaging 4:32. I just ran to feel (as usual).

I crossed the line in:

1:35:36

Four minutes behind the two front runners and just over five minutes in front of the fourth-place finisher. My first official placing! There were only 24 of us in the race but a podium is a podium. It also beats my previous half marathon PB, set at Outlaw X, by 12:13. I modelled a good run as 1:40:00 so very pleased with the time.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2021 at 11:00 am and is filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.