Windmill Half marathon

After running my first marathon in April at Blackpool, I was going to take a few weeks off running to recover. But at the finish line I received a fantastic medal and I got talking to the organisers and they informed me that they had a flat half marathon event coming up and the medal was going to have moving parts.  So I looked at the date and it would mean running 7/8 events in the space of as many weeks, including Leeds Half marathon and a couple of tough 10 milers.  But I decided to book it.

The weekend arrived and I travelled to take Laura and the children to her parents near Penrith and stayed over the night, after sleeping in the conservatory, we were woken up at 3:45am by the children and then the heavens opened and the noise on the conservatory roof was too loud to sleep, so I ended up laying there thinking this rain better stop before the race.  On the morning I set off at 7am to travel 100 miles to Lytham – St Annes and drove through loads of rain storms and the wind was blowing the car all over the motorway.  I thought what am I doing going running in this.

When I finally arrived at the race HQ around 8:45am it was really windy but at least the rain had stopped.  I picked my number up and sat in the car till around 9:30am before going to the start area.

The route started with a lap around Fairhaven lake (past the war plane) and along the sea front towards the Windmill and then back along a small field and through the streets back to the lake (two laps).  It is a flat route and the strong wind was behind you from around mile 1 to 4 but then you had to turn and run into it(it was more like one step forward , two steps back at times) and again on the second lap.

At the finish you received a medal which was still wrapped in a protective cover and told on numerous occasions to take care of it as it was fragile. The medal is a Windmill (yes it does turn).  As you can see from the pictures it is not small!!

For everyone after a flat half marathon with PB potential this is a definite event for you to take part in.  I can’t say the medal will be the same next year as I have been informed the medals are never the same from year to year.  The Blackpool medal was also different from last year.

Andrew Maddock