Jedburgh Half
[Sun 30th Oct 2011]
“Even the
longest journey begins with a single step” (
The road
to Jedburgh certainly isn’t the longest of journeys, however in a bid to
guarantee parking and no last minute rush it was at around 8:30 am on Sunday
morning that I found myself venturing from home to join Steve Dobby in his
brand new car (which I should add has an impressive array of gadgetry and
statistics which he will no doubt be glad to share with you should you ask) on
the road to Jedburgh. Given that I wanted to break the 1 hour 30 minute mark
for the Half Marathon the ultimate question was inevitably going to be ‘was
getting up early on a Sunday morning going to be worth it?’
For those
of you who don’t know much about Jedburgh, I suggest a visit to Wikipedia, there
you’ll discover a vast amount of previously unknown things about the border
town - I know I did.
After a
journey of about an hour and a half, which involved such conversation as
“what’s your favourite song to run to?” (Sinnerman by
Having
parked up, we made our way to the race HQ to pick up our chips (unfortunately
plastic and not potato) and surprisingly our rather fetching blue commemorative
t-shirts (normally prizes are given out after the event – not judging just
saying). Having dispatched t-shirts, attached chips to shoes and completed a
short warm up we headed for the start.
As we
wandered to the start, Steve and I discussed whether we were the only Blyth
runners taking part, neither of us were aware of any other Blyth runners’
presence in the race, however, as it would transpire, when we arrived at the
start we discovered Julie Lemin and Davina Lonsdale waiting to begin the race
too – Steven Wright once joked “small world wouldn’t want to paint it”. After
meets and greets and good lucks and cheerio’s we prepared for the gun.
Jedburgh,
according to Wikipedia, is “dominated by the substantial ruins of Jedburgh
Abbey” it was, figuratively speaking, under this domination at 11 am on a
slight hill that we, along with 527 other people, started the 10th Annual
Jedburgh Half Marathon.
The start
of the race, for those who don’t know, meanders through the town and heads down
to the A68. Thanks to a very visible
police presence the race runs along the A68 till just before a bridge over the
It’s at
this point that I became acutely aware of the speed of certain runners around
me and then the fact that they were all turning around a cone and heading back.
This was of course due to the starting of both the 10k and half marathon races
together. Confusion over concentration was regained.
At about 4
miles the race turns left off the A698 onto the B6400 for under a quarter mile
until the race turns right onto a minor road. This minor road runs between
fields and back towards the A698. When we re-joined the A698 initially the
route turned right back towards Jedburgh before doubling back again on another
minor road to return to the A698 (everybody still with me?). The race continues
along the A698 and as the road begins to dogleg left the race, at about 6
miles, follows another minor road to the right. Here the road rises slightly
and then veers left towards the
Where the
dogleg was in the A698 the race overlaps between outward bound and inward bound
- or maybe Jedward bound (see what I did there), and it was here that I met
During our
short warm up it was discovered that, despite the warmth of the autumn sun and
the few clouds dotted in the almost clear sky there was as nasty headwind for
our return to Jedburgh – just as “every cloud has a silver lining” (Attrib.
John Milton) “every silver lining has a cloud” (Attrib. Julian Schnabel). It
was between mile 7 and 8 that the headwind really started to cause a bit of a
problem (previously it had been a tailwind though I do not possess a tail). It
had been my aim to break the 1 hour 30 minute barrier and Steve’s aim to break
the 1 hour 40 minute barrier the headwind unfortunately put paid to any chance
of either of us reaching those milestones – though not for the want of trying.
At about
mile 9 the race returns along part of the off shoot route from earlier in the
race and eventually returns to the A698. Any respite at this point, though very
much so welcome, felt rather short lived and at around mile 10 the slog through
the headwind returned. Prior to this I
was still on course for a sub 1 hour 30, however it had become abundantly clear
to myself that any energy I had in reserve for the remaining 3 and a bit miles
was going into battling the headwind and controlling my breathing as a result.
I knew therefore that today was not going to be my day.
At around
the 11 mile mark the road starts to kick up into what seemed like at the time
and in reality probably is a rather steep ascent, and just when I thought it
was plateauing out it went even higher –tends to be the norm. Up to mile 10 I
had been predominately passing people, fairly comfortably I might add. Since
mile 10 it seemed like everyone had been passing me. At the top of the hill,
with about a mile and a half to go, I decided to put a final push in now that
the headwind had stopped being a headwind and I was closing in on the finish.
I have had
first-hand experience of the what could be the “real” Scotland – having lived
there for four years - and In spite of what Hollywood would like you to think,
Scotland, and the towns and cities therein, bear no resemblance to Brigadoon. Though
the tourist board certainly must appreciate the “Brigadooned” bagpipers for
lending a tartan flavour to the occasion, I do not. This had been only my
second ever trip to Jedburgh and as I had regaled to Steve in the car on the
way up I could only remember that it had a Jedburgh Woollen Mill rather than an
Edinburgh Woollen Mill – though now they have one of those too and it’s just
across the car park from the former (talk about cornering the market for
woollen goods). Anyway, having played us off at the beginning the bagpipers had
now found more lucrative ears for their warbling as they played shoppers into
the Jedburgh of the two Woollen Mills as I ran past.
With the
400 metres to go sign came the sense of the finish line and it was time for one
last hurrah. I sprinted in with an official time of 1 hour 34 minutes and 13
seconds, not a new pb but by no means my slowest half marathon. Having disposed
of my running chip, collected my abundantly biscuited goody bag a bottle of
The
consensus at the end was that in spite of the headwind the race had been a good
one (I almost described it as enjoyable here given time I may change my
opinion). Here the story ends life carries on and indeed carries on regardless
as it must. So was it worth it I hear you ask. The Rolling Stones once sang
“you can’t always get what you want”, which in mine and
Thanks for
reading
Stay tuned
for the abridged version…
Ran it,
didn’t win it, here’s a picture of some bongos.
