THIS time of year training for me consists of longer hours and longer miles in both the pool and on the road; therefore I decided to incorporate this into another new challenge.

When training with Tavistock Athletic Club club I am often made fun of by members for making the session a little shorter as I'm typically only training for three kilometres — meaning it isn't necessarily beneficial for me to do as many repetitions as those training for the London marathon for example. As I don't have any international competitions until the spring running longer distances now can help my fitness levels, so when I entered yesterdays race my excuse of being a 3k runner expired.

It was a last minute opportunity and on a whim I decided that running a half marathon would be fun. I am aware thousands of people run several a year but to me anything over six kilometres seemed like a marathon. The 10k race I competed in a few weeks previous was my test and that was pretty nasty but I was hoping that Cardiff half marathon — that is more than double the distance — would somehow seem more pleasant. Surprisingly it was. The sun was out, the course was flat and 18,000 people were partaking. I think the fact that I paced it well and went out an incredibly safe jogging speed (not that I had much option for the first few miles) along with the continuing support of a vocal crowd all added to the enjoyment. Being out of my comfort zone and admittedly not anywhere near race fit I was hoping no one would recognise me; however, my Tavistock vest did come in handy when several spectators spotted it and gave me a cheer.

It wasn't just the spectators that noticed the red, white and black strips but also a fellow Tavistock club runner who was taking part and knew what he was doing — as a result I had a several miles of perfect pacing accompanied by plenty of chatting.