Run Dorney Lake Half Marathon

I’ll open this post with the key take away fact from the weekend. I ran my fourth fastest ever half marathon and my fastest since just under 4 years ago – my time of 2:04:29.88 was thoroughly, amazingly satisfying.

The history of this run was complex. As part of a bigger project we had planned originally for 2020 <…sigh…> I had entered the 2020 Reading Half Marathon to be held that April, which was then delayed to November, although I deferred immediately to the following April expecting November to be cancelled – which it ultimately was.

Then April 2021 became November 2021, but COVID put paid to that one meaning I re-planned for Chepstow in January 2022, but increasing COVID rates and strict rules in Wales meant I re-planned again bringing me finally to Dorney Lake in early March 2022.

Training since last summer had ranged from complex and requiring careful management to pretty good actually, culminating in an excellent 10 mile run a week ago. The long period before that had me wondering for a while if, given the inevitable passage of time, I could possibly run as well as I had done in summer 2020. Most of that time I suspected not, rather emphasised by the hard working but ultimately only-okish performance at the Great South Run.

Last week’s run put a different spin on that though as I was able to look back on previous runs at a similar time to prior half marathons and confirm that my fitness appeared at a similar level to that when I did a replacement run for the Fleet Half in December 2020. That run came in at a little under 2:09 for the half and given what condition I’d been in for much of the time since summer 2021 I was alright with that.

This trip was very kindly structured around visiting our daughter in Reading but mainly around getting me to the Dorney Lake start line. The boat over to the UK seemed ok but definitely wasn’t received as well by my wife, but we traveled ok really.

On Saturday morning, we took in Alice Holt Forest on the edge of the South Downs for a lovely walk, but also for a gentle parkrun the day before the half. The course was unexpectedly hilly and quite rocky – and therefore probably unwise for someone whose ankles always used to be another problem to be managed.

It was an excellent location and a great run though and I took it as easy as I needed to.

Scenes of Alice Holt Forest

The morning of the race meant a solo drive from Reading to Dorney – a really rather enjoyable throwback to much longer drives when living in the UK a couple of years ago. My parking space was further away from the event village than I’d really been told but it was ok and I had enough time to register and prepare.

My only mistake was going to watch the 9am start of the 5 and 10km races whilst my run started a couple of hundred metres away at 9:05.

But ultimately that just meant I had a little jog to warm up and reach the start just as everyone was heading off – quite a few others made the same mistake it seemed.

The race itself then was an initial loop around the boathouse at one end of the lake where the finish line was then four 5km laps up and down one side of the lake.

Dorney Lake Playlist
Stereophonics – Dakota
Hundred Reasons – No Way Back
Viola Beach – Boys That Sing
Arctic Monkeys – Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair
Trailer Trash Tracys – You Wish You Were Red
Kasabian – eez-eh
Professor Green – Avalon
Chemical Brothers – Galvanise
Years & Years – King
Weezer – Mexican Fender
Alan Walker – Faded
New Order – Krafty
The KLF – Last Train To Trancentral
Avicii – Levels (Mystery mix)
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
Credit To The Nation – Call It What You Want
Feeder – Buck Rogers
Suede – Animal Nitrate
Oakenfold – Ready Steady Go
Prodigy – Breathe
A Great Big World – Won’t Stop Running
Pixie Lott – Kiss The Stars
Black Eyed Peas – Meet Me Halfway
Nickelback – Gotta Be Somebody
Courteeners – How Good It Was
Block Party – Flux
Alistair Griffin – Always No. 1
Keane – Sovereign Light Café
Kate Nash – Do Wah Do
a-ha – Analogue (All I Want)

I started slightly quickly but settled into a rhythm around 5:45 kilometre pace. At the far end of the lake on lap 1, I noticed something very odd with all runners running on the left of the course by the water table instead of on the right which was the shortest way around the course. I overtook 3 people just doing that although ultimately 2 of them passed me again later on.

One of those strange things groups of runners do I guess – when the guy in front runs a certain line it’s the easiest thing in the world to just follow.

Except I rarely do. I remember something similar in one of our Silverstone Half runs where you rejoin the race track from the outer roads and everyone else went across to the inside of the circuit as fast as possible rather than a straight line from the corner before to the beginning of the next one. I’ll just carry on doing my own thing.

Just after that section I overtook someone else who seemed to accelerate to catch up with me, but I didn’t pay much attention at that point. Then one of the other people I overtook joined back on too. The 3 of us struck up a bit of conversation which made the next 4k or so fly by. My pace quietly slowed a little to the 5:50 to 5:55 sort of range but I didn’t mind, it was hard work but still relatively comfortable.

Halfway around the second lap, we strung out a little, partly due to lapping people and partly due to being passed ourselves by the leaders of the 10k race going on at the same time. On stringing out I determined to just run my own race – one time the lady, Holly, came back onto my shoulder again and I was happy to see that. She hadn’t run very long distances much and was tentatively hoping to beat two and a half hours, so I think she was quite surprised when I had earlier calmly said we were on for about 2:02 at that time.

The other chap I didn’t see again and Holly then disappeared again shortly after. Then I was running alone for the rest of it. During lap 3 I started to notice the wind really pick up. It was a messy swirling wind that appeared and disappeared reasonably unpredictably whenever it liked but I drove through. By this time I was running kilos of around 5:45 to 5:50 and feeling alright but tiring.

I took my first walk not long after the start of lap 4. Up to that point, I was still on for a 2:02 run which would have been an incredible achievement, but I satisfied myself that anything under 2:05 was a pretty excellent achievement too. A few more short walks followed during the first half of lap 4 and I think my head went down a bit.

After a longer walk into the wind at the far end of the lake I resolved to go properly towards the finish. I was still on for a time around 2:05 and my last 2 kilometres of 5:49 and 5:44 made sure of that. I think I’d taken a little boost from two of my last tunes playing from my watch during the race – Alastair Griffin’s “Always No. 1” and Keane and their brilliant “Sovereign Light Café” (the video of which contains scenes around the location of the Poppy 10k and Half Marathon, the latter of which now still stands as my 3rd fastest ever).

I drove hard into the finish, being greeted by the PA announcer calling me over the line as David Scotland. My instant reaction to that was irritation at the time, when I’d just run a race I was pretty proud of, but it didn’t spoil anything. Just another feature of a good run.

So as I said earlier this was my 4th fastest ever, behind some really, really strong runs and I was proud of the run, proud of my time and happy to have hopefully helped brighten the run of a couple of fellow half marathoners the way they certainly did for me. It was a great day and might well be an event I’ll return to one day.