Silverstone Half Marathon (and Weather) Report

I ran the Adidas Half Marathon at Silverstone Race Track today and experienced everything that the British weather could throw up! Before the start, it was bitterly cold with a 30mph wind blowing everyone around – in fact it was so strong I had to hold on to my wife whilst crossing one of the bridges to the start as she literally was being blown away.

Once underway though, the wind either died down or had less of an effect as I was surround by (6000+) runners. As I passed through the Pits onto the starting grid at the sub 2hr sign, I walked straight into the Runners World Pace Runner for 9 min miles. Fantastic!! This was exactly what I wanted to prove that I could keep a 9 minute mile pace going for an extended period. He was a great guy and stuck to the pace perfectly whilst carrying a sign 3 ft above his head so we could track him in the crowd.

He served two other really useful purposes too:

1. I found the first few miles a bit dull – however they flew by as I was so focussed on not losing sight of the pace runner. I was constantly dodging people to keep the Pace Runner close enough to me. Some of the corners are so sharp at Silverstone that I found that where I was running next to the Pacer before a corner, I would be about 20ft back after the corner as everyone moved onto the racing line and cut me off!
2. It was so windy that most (if not all) of the mile markers had either blown over or blown away – I think I managed to spot 4 out of the 13 in total. Luckily the Pace Runner was experienced and (most importantly) was wearing a GPS so was able to shout out where the mile markers should have been. Also, as I knew he was sticking to 9 min/miles, I was able to gauge distance by looking at my watch

There was a point around 4 miles where I asked him about the lack of mile markers and he said he was sure about his pace so not to worry. At this point, a little gap had opened up in front of us (I was running next to him at the time) so it kind of felt like we were running on our own. He looked over his shoulder and shouted “Is everyone alright?”. There was a loud chorus of affirmation – it was then I realised there were about 40 people trailing him in a large group – it reminded me of that scene in Rocky when Balboa is running through town as part of his training and he suddenly realises there are a load of people running with him!!

The weather was astounding – it cycled between wind, sleet, rocket-powered hailstones and hot sunshine all the way round. The route was pretty much 3 laps of the Silverstone race track, so at least every head wind had a corresponding tail wind to push me along.

The worst part though was the heavy hail storm after about 75 minutes. At this point I was running level with the finish line and heard the cheering as the first lady (Liz Yelling) finished. She was then interviewed over the tannoy – I was pleased to hear that she was out of breath and said that the weather was really awful and made the run really hard. Given that she finished just as I was passing halfway, I took comfort in this: if she found it hard then it was ok if I found it hard.

I really enjoyed the run though – I had chosen my clothes wisely (gloves, long tracksters and a longsleeved cotton t-shirt over a technical fabric t-shirt) – I was warm when it was cold and cool when the sun came out and the wind died down. The wind was tough though. During the last 3 miles the wind absolutely pushed me along before turning on me completely and pushing against me for the last mile – there was no sprint finish from me.

I am not a great Formula 1 fan, but I did enjoy running round the famous race track. Having experienced the tight corners on foot, I can appreciate the skill required to manoeuvre a car round them at 90+ miles an hour. Also, I was surprised that the course was not as flat as I expected. The hills were by no means steep, but I could still see and feel the gradient changes.

As expected, it took a while to get in the car park and to the start. We had all been warned, so I arrived with about 40 minutes til the starting gun and had no problems warming up and getting the start on time. My wife had been watching from the Grandstand, but retired to the car after the start as the weather was making her really cold. She told me that there were still people going to the start some 20 minutes after the gun – and even people still coming into the car park with the 10 minute walk from the car park to start line ahead of them.

Overall, this was a great race. The Pace Runner was a brilliant idea (thanks to him and Runners World for that) and I really enjoyed the race. The race organisation was good – slick, well laid out and no problem finding the start, finish and drinks stations, plus a great goody bag (I really enjoyed the Granola biscuit thing).

After spending the last week a little tired, my confidence is back up knowing that I can keep the 9 min mile pace up for two hours in some really bad weather. Other plus points, some people were trialling their fancy dress for the Flora London Marathon – I ran past Bob the Builder (complete with tool belt and safety helmet), saw a lady dressed as a Lucozade bottle, saw Supergirl, avoided the congestion of a Prisoners’ Chain Gang and – the one and only time I will be able to claim this – beat Nigel Mansell in a race at Silverstone.

Hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did.

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