Near the end of the classic British War film “Ice Cold in Alex”, there’s a scene where John Mills and co are really suffering in the desert heat, trying to get their ambulance up a hill.

I know what they feel like; except there was no desert and mine was the only dead weight I had to get up a hill. But hot it most definitely was.

Despite knowing that it was going to be nigh on 30 degrees yesterday, I went over to old Verulamium town (St Alban’s to you) for the 25th annual half marathon: 13.1 miles of road running out of St Alban’s, down to Harpenden and back to the city.

The route itself was not particularly exciting: tedious, straight stretches of running on a narrow footpath, next to a busy road with some particularly long but shallow and so arduous hills. Apart from at mile 11 where there was just a steep hill.

I was hoping to match, if not beat, my time from the Windsor Half last year (about 1h49m) but there was little chance of that in the heat. Reading the ratings and reviews on Runners World will give you some idea of what it was like. In summary, all the opinions read something along the lines of “It was fucking hot.” And it was. Fucking hot. Which meant that after 6 miles, I was knackered and seriously considering giving up.

All the day before, I kept thinking about the four poor bastards who died in the Great North Run last year. A recent coroner’s inquest ruled that they died from over-exertion but at the time it was felt that the “soaring” temperatures were to blame. Soaring temperatures being about 18 degrees (which, let’s face it, is tropical for the North). So I was determined that whatever else, if I wouldn’t feel bad for walking or for taking it easy. So, feeling like I was about to vom everywhere at mile six, I took it easy.

But I finished (which is more than can be said for some of the people I saw collapsd on the side. No fatalities reported yet though.) and completed the course in 2:09:17, about 20 minutes slower than I’d hoped. I came 740th out of 1430 finishers which puts me just the wrong side of half the field. But I don’t particularly care because by half way, it was me versus the course. And I got a medal and t-shirt regardless. Go me!

I should give a special shout out to the organisers. Although the course wasn’t great, there was a water stop about every 1.5 miles which was more than adequate for the race and the marshals were friendly and capable. Kudos goes out to them. Compare this with the Capital FM Bupa 10km held in Hyde Park yesterday: 20000 runners and one drinks stop at 5km which ran out of water! Plus there was no water at the finish either. On a day like yesterday, with extremely hot temperatures, that’s almost criminally negligent.

Below is the readout from my HRM (Heart Rate Monitor). The bottom of the read out shows the lap times for each mile (although I missed pressing the button at mile 7, hence the long gap between them). My average hear rate was only around 150 (my normal race pace is about 170) so I don’t think there was any danger of over-exertion. Where it dips frequently in the latter half of the race was where I walked. (The high spike around the mile 6 was probably interference with someone elses HRM and not because I was having an attack of tachycardia - or it might have been a particularly pleasing lycra clad posterior of the female variety. Who knows?) I averaged about 10 minutes per mile and burned around 1800 calories during the race. I feel light today!