A Journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step

Cardiff Half Marathon - Oct 2005

Earlier in the year I had offered to jog around the Half marathon route with Nicola, my sister-in-law, as she was planning to do the London Marathon in 2006.

Unfortunatley she had a problem with her knee and had to drop out, which ment that I could try and do it faster that we would have if we had done it together.
My preparation for this may not have been ideal, twising my knee in the Ridgeway Challenge and then not doing anything for the following 4 weeks, one week resting it, then on holiday in China for 3 weeks. A good rest nonetheless, but the Cardiff Half was the first time I had tried running over 7 miles since twisting my knee.

Passing through the castle - less than 1km to go.

I was quite pleased that I did it in under 1:45 and am fairly sure that it I actually made the effort and trained properly for this I could get close to 1:30. I'm fairly confident that I won't do this again, so no-one will ever know.
My reason for not doing it again is just that I don't feel that running with 5000 other people on roads in a city is in keeping with the 'loneliness of the long distance runner'!
Although it was good finishing in the Millenium Stadium.

At the finish