I was looking forward to my first half marathon, even more so because my son Michael and his wife Sara were coming all the way from New York to run their first half marathons with me. They came to stay with us on Saturday, the only minor problem that evening was that my car (the one I had registered for the Park and Ride) had a nail in a tyre so the process of registering my wife's car was a little protracted but, in the end, successful.
We left early on Sunday morning and arrived at a quiet Thornhill just after 8am and straight onto a bus to take us into Oxford. It meant that we were hanging around the race village for an hour, but it was soon time to get to our places at the start. After a 15 minute delay we were off.
Michael and I ran together for the whole 13.1 miles (Sara wanted to run a little way behind us) and kept up a nice even pace between 9.35 and 9.37 minutes per mile. It was great to see so many spectators around the course. The weather conditions were practically perfect, a fresh 12 degrees, only a breeze on occasions and some warm sun towards the end. We saw Alison (our wonderful kit lady) at mile two, and then again with Zoe, Peter and Hannah around mile nine.
After mile ten, it was pretty congested on the footpath through the University Parks. We lost a little time but made some up in the last mile or so with a spectacular route around the Radcliffe Camera. Two more corners and the finish was in sight. We had made it round.
Our final chip places were 3924 and 3925 out of 6219 finishers. I was 57th out of 96 runners who were 60 plus. Michael's chip time was 2:06:57 and I was one second slower. We were very pleased with the result, our training had gone well and it paid off.
We met up with everyone after the finish and made our way to Jamie's where Zoe had booked for lunch. It was a brilliant way for us all to be together after the race. One of the best days ever.
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