You’ve been following a rigorous and demanding training plan for the past twelve weeks, getting out there every day, come rain or shine and putting every ounce of energy into it. You’ve built your endurance, you’ve honed your speed and fine tuned your muscle fibres ready for the big event. Everything is in place and then suddenly, wham! A warning of a massive storm comes in and before you know it the race is cancelled, blowing away your PB plans. That’s what happened to Simon Hearn recently as he was preparing to head over to Southsea for the Great South Run.

Of course, safety has to come first and every athlete knows that. That doesn’t make it any less frustrating though when it happens. It wasn’t just for fun that Simon was competing in the Great South Run though. It was a qualifying race for the 2025 England Masters Half Marathon Representative Race, so there was a lot at stake.

Earlier in the year Simon had qualified to run for England in the 2025 International Representative Masters Half Marathon race in Swansea. He did that by finishing third in his age category at the Chester Half Marathon, recording a time of 1:26:50.

The cancellation of the Great South Run had left Simon in limbo. How now had a three month block of solid training behind him and no race to do to capitalise on that fitness. Hence, he decided to sign up for the River Thames Half Marathon which was on the following weekend.

The event was located in Walton-on-Thames in Surrey and featured a fast, flat route, following the River Thames towpath and roads from Walton Bridge and Hampton Court Bridge and back.

Starting off a little bit quickly, with a 6:21 for his first mile, Simon soon settled into a pace of around 6:30, going through 5k in 20 minutes and 10k in just over 40 minutes. After that he was around 6:40 pace for the next four miles, making it to 10 miles in 1:05:37.

Battling it out with Ailsa Clay who was first female, it was going well for Simon until he suddenly got an excruciating pain in his calf muscle. He thought about stopping with 5k left to go but decided to stick with it. Although the Thames towpath was flat, it had some gravel sections and was slightly uneven and as a result, Simon’s legs had taken a bit of a battering.

Losing quite a bit of time over the last few miles, Simon was now going at 6:50 pace and even dropped down to 7 for the last mile. It was a real grind and he’d had to dig deep to get through it. He could see that Ailsa was suffering as well and because they’d been toing and froing quite a bit throughout the course of race, Simon was determined to beat her.

Clocking a time of 1:27:04, Simon finished 38th out of 746 starters and he was 2nd in the 55 to 59 age category. It was a good result for Simon but frustrating as well as, had his calf not gone he would probably have got round in around 1:26.

The race was won by Ben Whyte of Colchester Harriers in a time of 1:13:13 with Owen Graham of Woking AC taking second place in 1:13:34. Toby Rowlands of South London Harriers was third in 1:13:39 with Charlie Cook taking 4th in 1:13:42.

The lady Simon was battling it out with for a lot of the race ended up crossing the line in 1:27:20 and that was just about enough to give her the female win, finishing ahead of Joanna Oliver by a second. They were 42nd and 43rd overall. Alex Binley of Hercules Wimbledon was third female, registering a time of exactly 1 hour 28 minutes.

There will certainly be some exciting times to come for Simon, especially when he gets to don that famous England vest next summer. It has always been a dream of his wear that vest so that will be a proud occasion. In the mean time, he plans to continue training hard and focusing on the England Masters races.

Simon also gets a lot of satisfaction out of coaching the Middle-Distance Juniors where he has a solid group of young athletes who are dedicated to their training and to representing Bournemouth AC.