I was not supposed to be in this event! I was supposed to be doing the Forest of Dean Half Marathon a week later. However, realising 12 days before, that this clashed with a holiday to the Lake District, I hastily searched around for something on a different date, of a similar distance (wouldn’t want to waste that training!) Hey presto, the Warwick Half! Despite terrible reviews from its inaugural year in 2013, it turned out to be a really good event. Very similar in undulations to the FOD (but on the road), the Warwick Half was a well-organised, pretty circular route that began at the racecourse and swept through some of the outlying villages before returning to a finish several metres from the start. Not knowing the route and with no expectations except that I wanted to beat a PB of 1:47, I set off around the 8 min mile mark. Despite a slight headwind in places, I felt strong, constantly slowly myself down when I found myself exceeding target pace. However, at mile 10, I finally went for it, overtaking at least 20 runners in the last mile (this has only ever happens in films!!) and smashed my PB by nearly 6 minutes. I was very pleased with my 1:41:20, 369th place overall out of 1906 runners (no age category placings given) and 33rd/360 females.