Portsmouth coastal half marathon

So hear i am going to give the blog malarkey yet anther try !

I will be kicking off with a race report from this weekends Portsmouth coastal half marathon.

This year i was looking to give  my training and racing a bit of a shake up and look to try some new races and look more in to more cross training when the weather gets a bit warmer getting out on the road and mtb bikes.
Anyway lets get back on track and more  about the coastal half marathon this event is a mixture road and off road running so on paper this looked like a good warm up event before the Grizzly in March but with out the hills. The start of the race is nice and low key outside the Pyramids leisure center and  then heads of for about 3 miles along the seafront in to a bit of a head wind then a small loop to the first water stop what was manned by the RNLI. At this time i did check on how i was felling legs ok pace ok . Time to take on the muddy beach soon, Just before the beach there was some single track  then on to the beach and back on to some more single track a long the coast line for about 2 miles next body and pace check legs not so good ITB starting to say its not happy pace has doped off.  Coming up was the next  drinks stop time to take the last bit of my gel (SiS pineapple ) all good nutrition practices for the Grizzly as i normally don't use them on a half marathon. Back on to some tarmac now it for a short time then back to some more off road running then back on the the muddy beach i can see two runners in front of me have lost there trainers in the mud.
 I survive the beach but am now really starting to struggle crossing the muddy football pitches half a mile later last drinks station and a quick look at my Garmin last  couple of miles to go. Time to dig in this is more good practices for races later in the year.
Back on to the seafront the wind is now on my back this will help ! there was one thing i did not take in to account all the people out waking on the prom in the sunshine so there was some waving in and out all the way to the finish line.
My overall view of the race and course most defiantly not a PB courses but on a nice day its a nice place to run if the wind and rain is about you  will have to dig deep. As for me my last weeks build up was not so good a small  ITB problem did not help neither did cold that was still lingering that i thought i had recovered from. But did help me on trying to me more mentally strong when things are not going well in races.
As an over all score for the race i will give it 8 out 10 as it was a nice day and as for me i can only give myself a 6 out of 10 ( but any run should be a 10 out of 10 good or bad because its some thing we all over to do)