Manchester Half Marathon

I took advantage of being in Manchester for a conference and came a day early to run the Manchester Half Marathon.

Why Manchester Half Marathon

I'm speaking at the ContentEd Conference, which I noticed conveniently fell the Monday and Tuesday after the Manchester Half Marathon.

Wanting to take advantage of work paying from my train down to Manchester, I came a day early so I could do the race.

The journey

John came with me for the race, and we took the train down. Nothing exciting to report about the journey other than for the last half hour, the train got very busy with young folk going to see a big fight happening in Manchester with a YouTube star. 

Canal walk and finding the start line

We didn't do much before dinner other than checking into our hotel. To make the walk interesting, I chose a route along the Bridgewater Canal Tow Path which had some pretty sights along the way.

The only other thing I did was while John took a quick nap, I went to find the race start line so I knew where I was going the next day. 

The start was in the same location to the Manchester Marathon, but for that race, I had met another Edinburgh-based runner who gave me a lift and I tagged along with to the start, so I didn't really notice where I was going.

I successfully navigated to it also found the medal podium which called for a selfie in front of it.

Found the start and the medal podium.

Back for Detroit pizza, tots, and a cookie

For my pre-race carbo loading, John and I went back to Ramona, which is where we went before the Manchester Marathon. We loved our meal so much, I made sure we went back there.

It didn't disappoint. 

I had a spicy veggie sausage Detroit-style slice of pizza and reacquainted myself with their delicious truffle tater tots.

Truffle tots.

Detroit-style pizza.

Last time John and I split their warm, gooey cookie dessert, but this time, we made sure to get our own.

I had to help John finish my last bites, though, because even for a pre-race meal, it was a lot of food.

I honestly don't know how I had this same meal plus a milkshake last time when I did the marathon.

The race

An early convergence of the runners

A lot of runners were staying at the same hotel as me, so it didn't take long for the convergence of the runners to start for this race: we were all getting breakfast at the same time.

And then the second I was outside I could see even more runners walking to the start having just got off at a tram stop.

Runners coming from the tram stop.

It felt in such stark contrast to Loch Ness two weeks ago which, although a full marathon, was smaller scale with about a third of the runners as the Manchester Half (16.5k).

A personalized bib

Manchester Half Marathon was trying something new this year where you could personalize different parts of your bib. 

For the middle line below my name you had to write what you're running for. Not really running for anything, I put 'I like running' because I couldn't think of anything cleverer.

American Lauren who likes running (according to the bib).

Still, much appreciated getting to add an American flag and look like I was representing USA.

Avoiding the toilet queue

My hotel was close to the start line, so I opted to not use the toilets at the start and just go before leaving the hotel. 

So sad to report no update on what the toilet queues were like timewise, but the porta-potties I did pass near the start were crowded with people waiting, so I very much made the right decision to go at the hotel.

Glad to avoid a queue like this.

Warm at the start

While it was a sunny day in Manchester, it was a very chilly one. Wanting to avoid the bag queue as much as the toilet queue, I actually opted to walk over in an old sweater (not mine) that I could leave at the start line.

Keeping warm in a sweater.

This is a common thing done at races, but I had never done it before. I have to say, keeping toasty until the start instead of shivering was a preferable experience. 

Making our way to the start.

Familiar sights

I knew the half marathon race route was similar to the full marathon race route I did, but I actually didn't look into how similar they were beforehand.

When running it, though, memories of the marathon kept flooding back to me as I passed so many familiar sights from 2021.

Wearing my Manchester Marathon shirt at the Manchester Half Marathon.

An annoying male runner

There were two parts of this race that pissed me off. The first was the male runner around mile 5 who saw me looking at my running watch and told me to "relax, love".

I'm assuming he said this thinking I was being too hung up on my time, but whatever the case, it was uncalled for. Too often men are either cat-calling me while running or people are offering unsolicited advice or encouragement as if I don't know what I'm doing or have never done this before.

It's incredibly patronising. So that dude needs to shut it.

Eating all the sweets

Halfway through, I realized that while I was running well, there was no way I was going to get near the PB I got at the Edinburgh Half Marathon in 2022.

Wanting to have a bit more fun with the race (and also feeling hungry), I took so many sweets that locals were handing out between miles 7 and 8.5.

If I couldn't get a PB, at least I'd be well fed. It was a bit hit or miss with the treats though as some people were handing out candy that was really tough to chew - not ideal for runners.

A good run, but not in my top 3

Although I knew I wouldn't get a PB, I at least wanted to get a 2nd or 3rd best time. I managed to keep the first 4 miles under 10 minutes, but for the rest of the race, my times were under 10:31.

In the end, it meant I was a little over a minute longer than the Edinburgh Half Marathon this year.

My official time was 2:12:21 (2:11:40 for 13.1 exactly according to Strava). So this run doesn't even rank in my top three. 

Okay legs

The real victory, though, was my legs felt okay afterwards. They didn't hurt that much, and I could walk okay.

I even was able to get in a full jump, unlike at Loch Ness.

Pain-free jumping.

I think it was precisely because I had just done a marathon recently that this half didn't hurt my legs. Compared to two weeks ago, this was easy going on my legs.

A small shirt when I ordered XS

Now on to the second things that pissed me off about this run. When booking, you had the option to pay extra for a finishers shirt. I saw they had XS available, so I took the opportunity to get the shirt as it's not very often races offer ones that fit me.

After paying £10 extra for a shirt that would fit me, it turned out that small was the smallest size that they were offering at the finish line.

The shirt isn't as huge as the Loch Ness one, thankfully, but it does piss me off more than Loch Ness that I paid for a shirt I had to select a size for and then they didn't even offer it. Tsk, tsk MCR Half!

Had to tuck in my too-big shirt.

The longest wait for lunch

After my post-race shower, John and I went to check out this place called Grub which is a street-food venue one of the conference events was meant to be at before they changed location. 

Turns out, it wasn't that great. There were only two food trucks there and it was quite far to get to for little selection. I got this Japanese savory pancake with tofu, which was nice, but the poor woman running it was very overwhelmed and it took over 30 minutes to get my food.

Japanese savory pancake.

Not exactly the expected wait time for food truck food - especially as John had limited time before catching a train.

There was also a bakery stall there and the American in me couldn't turn down the opportunity for a pumpkin pie cinnamon bun.

Pumpkin pie cinnamon bun.

Running reflections

While not a top ranked run, I was still impressed with my finishing time as I hadn't done a single run between the Loch Ness Marathon and this. 

Previously, I had never gone longer than a week without running since I started in 2018, but I felt so shattered after Loch Ness and I was moving house the following week, I decided to not run at all between the two races.

So I went from 26.2 to 13.1 miles, with no training runs in between. In that respect, not bad for having two weeks off running.

With the race behind me, it's now on to conferencing and networking for the next two days. 

Next race

Nothing planned. This is very likely my last race of the year.