The Retford Half Marathon was held on 16th March this year. This event incorporates the Nottinghamshire County Championships so attracts some of the best local running talent.
Nine runners from Grantham Running Club were also there to contest the event with differing goals, some to test early season fitness, others to see how the marathon training is going and a couple to see if they’d recovered from holidays.
The pre-race talk focused on the claims of the course to be both scenic and fast, with discussions focusing on a little hill up towards the mile 11 mark, but this then gave way to a fast downhill finish. As a result, it was agreed the course was on the fast side.
Conditions were near perfect for distance running, sunny and 5 degrees. As the race progressed the dappled sun through the scenic parts became a little cloudier, but this did nothing to quell the spirits of the runners and allowed the course to deliver on its “fast” claims. This can be seen in the results with both the men’s and ladies course records being broken. Edward Buck winning in a time of 01:05:59 and the women’s event being won by Naomi Drakeford 01:17:43.
GRC runners also showed the courses’ fast credentials, Gavin Potter was first runner back for GRC in 01:17:34, 39 seconds outside of his PB and a strong start as he bids to retain the GRC half marathon trophy.
Next back was Alan Carley with an impressive 2 minute 8 second PB to finish in 01:32:21. Not to be outdone was James McMullen who absolutely smashed his old mark by over 11 minutes to finish in 01:33:43.
Gav Meadows was fourth back for GRC in 01:34:29, saying he went out to quick and paid the price and is contemplating retirement form half marathons.
Jason Blair ran a composed 01:40:23, enjoying the course and walking the odd uphill section not to overdo things ahead of the Boston marathon in a few weeks’ time.
Catherine Payne ran a solid 01:42:48, happy to get around under 01:45 after a recent holiday. Ben Mason was seventh back in 01:44:35, delighted to have finished 4 minutes quicker than his last half in Benidorm. Rob Howbrook, returning from injury, finished in 01:48:08 and was pleased he’d had no recurrence of the injury.
Robert McArdle completed the lineup for GRC finishing in 01:48:39 and was happy to have broken the 01:50 mark after a recent holiday and injury.
A well organised and good event and one that many of the Grantham runners said they would return to next year.