Great Bentley Half Marathon results

8 February 2016 - By Marc Underdown

What a day it was yesterday. A massive turnout from the club, with PB’s falling all over the place. So I thought I’d try and reflect on how that came to be in this race report.

For me there are three factors that go into running fast times. First of these is the course.  The Gt Bentley half is a very popular race (selling 800 entries online within nine days) and I suspect a lot of that is down to the fact that it’s a fairly flat course. It’s also well marshalled and every aspects appeared to be very well organised.

The second factor is the weather. Temperatures were, in my opinion, perfect for fast running. The sun was out for a lot of the race and all was well except for the wind! It was windy, maybe not as much as we’re experiencing as I write this, but 20-25mph winds were great when it was pushing you, but not so great when it was head-on in the tough miles from nine to eleven, and then the last half mile to the finish.

Finally the third factor is the runner’s condition.  Lots of our runners are well into spring marathon training plans so already have got their endurance mileage up. However there is also a lot of runners in the club that are regularly taking part in most of the club sessions and in the cross country events, and this is leading to them still being on the upward curve of their race performance.

So for 14 runners yesterday (apologies if I miss anybody), all these components came together to record new personal bests – ranging from an improvement of 10 seconds to 15 minutes. Take a bow all of you.

All of the results and times are below – good luck Stewart on Tuesday night! It’s also worth pointing out that Shawn Beckerleg and Rachel Crisp were running in their first half marathon races, and that several others ran their best times for a good while. Thanks to Stewart for coming along to take some great action shots, and also to the people who baked as I suspect that went down well with all!