Graham’s Blog – The Humber Bridge Half-Marathon (24.06.2018)

What a great day it turned out to be going up and over the Humber Bridge – twice! For some reason I didn’t really research any details of this race in advance, but the night before noticed a reference to ‘Cardiac Hill’ on Twitter – Perhaps I should have planned better, as I thought the climbs over the bridge would be the most challenging. Miles 3 – 4 and 9-10 turned out to be the real challenge on what was to be a hot and hilly Half. The run started with a loop Hessle on the North side of the Humber and continued over the bridge for the first time. The route then wandered through a mix of Barton- on- Humber and some lovely countryside, before heading up the notorious ‘Cardiac Hill’ at mile 9, before climbing back up to the Bridge for the second time, reaching the middle at the 12 mile mark. Thanks to Simon at the start for helping to calm my nerves. Can’t believe that fourteen runs into the challenge and I still get nervous!

THE ONE IN THE SUN

With the forecast of temperatures in the mid-twenties, unbroken sunshine and the position of the sun directly overhead in June, sensible planning and running were the flavour of the day. I don’t think that I have ever applied that amount of factor 50 sun cream, or indeed Vaseline, before a run in my life. I can happily report both seemed to work well!

Best Moments – Meeting Pete from Fitmums & Friends. We must have run about 6 miles chatting about everything and nothing. One spectator even commented on the fact that we were chatting away during a half marathon. Pete’s encouragement on Cardiac Hill inspired me to kick on and reach my sub 1:50 target for the day, by 13 seconds! Thanks Pete.

Funniest Moments – Seeing the looks on people faces who were using garden hoses to cool the runners down, on being asked if they had water meters fitted! The guy in the full wedding dress, inspired running.

Looking ahead, there are another 6 runs to complete between now and the last run at the Robin Hood Half Marathon in Nottingham. That’s one every other week now! I still need to find a few races in July & August, so if anyone has any suggestions please let me know or send me a link.

MORE RUNNERS PLEASE!

We still have Charity places for people wanting to run the Robin Hood Half Marathon & Mile Challenges on the 29th & 30th of September. Would you like to join us and raise funds to support our work? Contact us or to find out more visit the charity partners’ info page on the marathon website. For those looking for a shorter distance to run there is the new ‘One Mile Challenge’ this year where you can also raise money for the Charity. 

Thanks to our service users, The Treat Kitchen, Buckles Solicitors and other supporters who are already signed up to run alongside staff from Café Sobar and Double Impact.

If you would like to make a donation to the campaign please click here.

NEXT RUN

So – it’s 14 down and 6 to go. My next run will be at the new Leamington Spa Half Marathon on the 1st of July. Another hilly course I hear! I’ll post some updates on Twitter for you @DI_Recovery & @DI_Runs.

Thanks for reading.