Grant & Stone Wycombe Half-Marathon

Recently decided to dust off my running trainers after a while of eating takeaways, drinking Strongbow and just having a generally decent life! However, decided to do a few halves in the summer, starting with this one so that it gives me an incentive to get fit. 

Hopefully people will come along (I know a few expressed an interest), and we can arrange a pub lunch, beer garden, and it may be a nice sunny day.  Bring the family!

Who is going to join me??!

I'm in, but only for the 10k this year!

After doing Maidenhead 10miler in blazing heat the other day, I'm keeping things 10k and under for the forseeable!

Still...have done the half 6 times at Wycombe, so if anyone needs an indepth analysis let me know!

Otherwise, see a few of you on the day!

I shall be most likely there.

Stevie, you can't wimp out & go for the 10k! Maidenhead was awful for me too but I planning on still giving the half ago.

Coops, stay away from me!

 K8greene, I can and will.

 i learnt last year that shoe horning in a half marathon when I'm in the middle of  training for a 5k series doesn't do any favours!

Therefore, the next 3months will be a 5miler, 4 5ks and a 10k.

Unless you're a very good runner, I think you can expect to lose 5mins from your pb course on this one. Genius mixture of a steep mile long hill in the first 1 1/4miles, potential to be a blazing hot day, and a 100feet incline over the last 6miles  makes it a real doozie of a course

I came out 5 1/2mins slower than what I'd done just 5months earlier at Wokingham last year...

Stevie G . wrote (see)

Genius mixture of a steep mile long hill in the first 1 1/4miles, potential to be a blazing hot day, and a 100feet incline over the last 6miles  makes it a real doozie of a course

Well I was considering it until I read that

What's the 10K like?

Sarah the 10k starts out on the same route as the half so has the mile steep hill after the first 1/4 mile - it is a killer!  It skips a bit of the later climbing but it's not a fast course by any stretch.  I also found it quite congested in places last year.

I probably won't do it this year, although might keep my options open on the 10k as I'm concentrating on tri this summer and that may also be a weekend I go away.

Stevie - I came out 20 mins slowerthe my PB at Maidenhead & that was flat

Is it too late to change to the 10k? I'll probably take the same amount of time to do that then the others doing the half so at least we'll all be at the pub for the same time

 Coops10 wrote (see)

 The elements will only make you stronger for it (if you don't collapse)....

I was pretty tempted at the 2 races I did over Easter & that was only in April, imagine what it's gonna be like mid-July

You can change between races on the day I'm sure.

Last 3 years have actually been fairly decent weather for July.

I had a 5year spell from 2002 to 2006 doing the half and at least 3 of those years were absolutely blistering heat, with the other 2 years just warm!

Did the 10k in 08, and 09, and I remember how the usual nerves before a race weren't there, as I was glad I wasn't doing the half . Came back to the half last year, and despite my highest ever placing in a half (16th) I knew I should have been a couple of mins quicker, and was disturbed to lose 5 1/2mins from my pb!

The 10k takes the same route as the half for the first 5k, and then you have a gentle incline but very short couple of hundred metres, then a 3/4mile downhill bit to rampage down.

In 2009 they completely bungled the 10k finish. I was in a pack competing for 5th place with 2 others, and a key marshall wasn't in place. I went the right way, they went  the wrong way. I went from thinking I'd benefit from this, to being gutted to see a few people who'd been behind me emerging ahead of me with about 200metres to go! I had to kill myself to beat one of them, and come a meagre 9th!

At least I'd done the full distance though...it'd be worthless if you were one of the people who didn't run the full course. Apparently only me and the actual winner in the top ten did the full course!

Could have been really bad if the winner hadn't had such a big lead. The results show about 30secs different, but in reality it should have bene 90+

Stevie G . wrote (see)

Still...have done the half 6 times at Wycombe, so if anyone needs an indepth analysis let me know!

Stevie G, can you give a few thoughts on this. You have run the half a few times and know it is slow, you say by about 5 odd minutes cf Wokingham, but you still run it. Why? I guess it is a local race but there are others round at the same time.

I have exactly the same issue, if I heaved a stone from my front garden I could almost hit the runners at the end of the first big hill and my wife is constantly saying I should do this half as it is local and organised by a club I have run for in the past. Same day is MK half and that has to be flatter and faster.

Simply because it's so close Philip. Wouldn't feel right, being fit and not taking part really. In 2007 I was injured so couldn't take part and that felt quite bad.

Luckily They do the 10k option now, which I will be taking, as last year I was doing a stack of 5ks, and then shoe horned this half in, which despite being my course record, was 5 1/2mins down on my overall best!

Having said that, I reckon the really good runners might only lose 2mins on their bests.

I'm just a bit weak of mind, and when I know that pb chance is slipping away I can let it go a bit

I wouldn't bother doing another race on the same day...after all we all know the peril of mid July racing!

ps Handy Cross ex member then Philip?

Stevie G . wrote (see)

Simply because it's so close Philip. Wouldn't feel right, being fit and not taking part really. In 2007 I was injured so couldn't take part and that felt quite bad.

Luckily They do the 10k option now, which I will be taking, as last year I was doing a stack of 5ks, and then shoe horned this half in, which despite being my course record, was 5 1/2mins down on my overall best!

ps Handy Cross ex member then Philip?

Which 5ks are you doing, I guess the summer series round and abouts?

I am ex-Handy Cross (and ex many other clubs as well). I wound back my running in my 30's and my eldest started taking track seriously so while I was on a lull I resigned from Handy Cross and served my sentence and joined Wycombe Phoenix. Had a few good years there on the track and country, really enjoyable, but now need more races than a track and cross country seaosn provide so back onto the road. I am thinking about joining another local club as second claim, Striders any good?

Lovely little club, and if you've wound back from your top competitive days, may sound just the ticket for you.

Load of events from 5ks to xcs to road races, so plenty to get involved with. I don't get along too much to the sessions, but do most of the races, so we'd welcome you aboard.

Yeah usual 5k series...but won't do the 5k on the Rye....ironic really compared to my comments on the wycombe 10k/half   With so many in such a short time, and the one on the Rye being 2 whole laps of the park, and a lap round the back, it really is mentally hard work, having run on that route so many millions of times!

ps having read about your past times on your forum info bit, very impressive, and beyond the decent level you modestly claim!

Would be interesting to tap your obviously big knowledge on how to run some pretty fast times.

Stevie G . wrote (see)

Would be interesting to tap your obviously big knowledge on how to run some pretty fast times.

If I knew I woudl help, but it is a mystery to me. I just started running and I was fast, quite literally so. I entered the school cross country in the sxith form and won with practically no running before so went on and di more cross country at school, university and in the army, with soem messign about in the summer. I then joined a club at work and trained at lunchtimes and then got pulled into a running club and started track and road races and it has all gone on from there.

Have you got a list of the dates of the 5k series, doesn't seem to be much detail on http://www.marlowstriders.co.uk/msdb/?page_id=6179