I’m as ready for the Sheffield half marathon tomorrow as I’m ever going to be. I’m resting this morning, getting plenty of carbs, protein and fluid, then travelling down to Sheffield this afternoon and staying overnight.

I did another half marathon once, back in the days when my legs worked, but that was 30 years ago so I’m not entirely sure what to expect on the day. There will be considerably more people and organisation, this time, I’m sure. The instructions say to go to the area with sign that’s the same colour as my race number, so I’m going to trust that the staff know what they are doing and just meekly go along with that. A bit like airports; I worked out years ago that airports are incredibly stressful places…. unless you turn off the greater part of your brain and just trudge along in the general direction the signs tell you to. So I’m going to do that. Only without the trudging.

I’m fairly confident that I’ll finish, but I don’t have the slightest idea what sort of time I’m likely to get. Neither do I have a goal. This isn’t because I haven’t been training properly, it’s because I don’t know quite what to expect of the road surface. How rough will it be? What sort of camber? Slopes, I can manage, but will I be able to get into a decent rhythm or will I be fighting the whole way? The broken and overgrown pavements around here are not necessarily a good match to the roads of Sheffield.

Having said that, I did find an excellent new training path that’s likely a lot closer to the race conditions than anything I’ve used regularly so far. Annoyingly, I only found it two days ago. I’ll write about it in a bit, because there are some useful things to learn from it.

Assuming I survive the course, we’ll be going to the worst pub in Sheffield on Sunday evening. If anyone fancies a pint, that is where you can buy me one 🙂

People have been amazingly generous in their sponsorship. At the time of writing, they have donated £1315 for nia. I’m touched and I’m heartened.

But it doesn’t end here. I also have the Leeds half marathon and the Great North Run to do this year, plus the Middlesbrough 10k. I’ll be back after Sunday with a new donation page that’s not tied to any specific event and I’ll be using that for general fundraising efforts from then on.

Assuming I survive.