It seems like Wilmslow has it’s own micro-climate.

Last year there was concern that the half-marathon would be called off due to widespread snow, yet Wilmslow had not a flake of the white stuff.

This year the forecast was doom, with gloom and plenty of cold, wet, icy and thundery thrown in for good measure. Yet cometh the hour, the sun came out. Admittedly there was a hail storm about about mile 2, but it was short lived. Thankfully.

As I alluded in my last post, I seem to have picked up a niggling injury which I’ve been resting the last few days. I think it’s a trapped nerve but it’s been uncomfortable and I did question whether I could run on it or not.

Whether rightly or wrongly, I did. To be fair it niggled a bit at me for the first 9 miles and I considered whether to continue or not, but it didn’t seem to be getting any worse. Bizarrely, at 10 miles the niggling went altogether and the final 3.1 miles were a great pace for me, all being sub 7 min/miles. I’d saved loads in the tank beforehand having run out of juice/energy/power/life/everything in 2013 having gone off like a hare holding a very smelly soft cheese.

So despite injury I completed the course in a chip-timed 1h34m56s which is faster than all of the 2013 Challenge races of the same distance!

As is usual, the good people of Mobberley turned out in force to make some serious noise in support of the race.

And the T-Shirt was good too – no salmon-pink elements present at all this year!

And despite having run for 13.1 miles, I now am unable to walk as the niggle is back with  a vengeance – an appointment with the osteopath will be made in the morning as I don’t want to be out of training for too long with Edinburgh only being 2 months away………