Since she was back at home in Newcastle at the time, Katie Gunn decided she may as well go in for the Gateshead Half Marathon. It had been over three years since she’d done a half marathon so she felt it might be useful to test the waters and see what sort of time she’d be capable of. That would then in turn give her an idea of what to aim for in her forthcoming Swansea Half Marathon.

At the Swansea Half Marathon her goal will be to achieve a Championship qualifying time for the London Marathon, which would be under 1 hour 28 minutes. A woman of her speed should be more than capable of achieving that but the Gateshead Half would certainly be a good tester to see if she had it in her arsenal.

There were a couple of notable hills on the route which could put the cat amongst the pigeons so it wasn’t the fastest of courses. It was also a two lap course which may have made it a bit more challenging mentally, although at least on the second lap you knew what was coming. There was also a marathon on that day which was four laps.

The route took in some Gateshead’s most famous landmarks, including Gateshead Millennium Bridge, the Glasshouce ICM, Tyne Bridge and Swing Bridge and it finished in Gateshead International Stadium. Gateshead International Stadium is the North East’s only IAAF-standard athletics venue and has hosted some of the Diamond League meetings that are shown on TV. In fact, five world records have been set on the Gateshead track and field.

Having been in good form so far this year, Katie was 6th female at the Stubbington 10k in 37:54 and 6th again at Eastleigh in 37:10. She’d also done the Lytchett 10 in 1:04:38 which was enough to see her finish 4th female. She’d also managed to get her parkrun times down to the 18:07 which was pretty quick.

The course was downhill to start off with but then it was back up that same hill at the end, so a relatively tough finish. Katie started off with a 6:16 for her first mile before registering a 6:26 for her second mile which was slightly up and then slightly down. It flattened out for the next few miles and Katie clocked another 6:16 before going through 5k in 19:37.

For the next couple of miles she averaged out at about 6:25 pace before hitting a hill at 5.3 miles. She got through that one in 6:36 before heading on a slightly downhill trajectory for the seventh mile. She’d gone through 10k in 39:43 and was looking on course for a good time. She was back at 6:27 pace or the seventh mile before getting into a rhythm at around 6:45 pace for the next five miles.

That took her through 10 miles in 1 hour 5 minutes. Off course, she had that tough incline to tackle in the last mile though. That put her down to 7 minutes for that 13th mile before she wound it up with a strong last quarter of a mile.

Going over the finish line in 1:27:12, Katie had taken 27th place overall out of 717 runners and was 4th fastest female by virtue of chip time. That was an excellent run from Katie and she averaged 6:35 pace per mile for the 13.25 miles she covered.

Grace Tindall of Central AC was 1st woman and 5th overall in a time of 1:20:40. Ellie Reed of Heaton Harriers was 2nd lady and 1st vet in 1:24:59. Karis Rable finished behind Katie but had a chip time of 1:25:08 so much have started late.

The race win went to Tim Wilcock of Tyne Bridge Harriers who recorded a time of 1:15:39. His teammate Tim Lawrence was 2nd in 1:17:27. Clapham Chasers man Elvedin Bektic was the only other man to come in under 1 hour 20. He clocked a time of 1:19:46.

Katie’s partner Luke Bentley has also been to some of the Bournemouth AC training sessions with her and he completed the course in 1:35:13 which put him 78th overall on chip time.

The signs were good for Katie as she’d managed to go a fair bit quicker than she needs to to get the sub 1:28 half marathon time. Only certain races are allowed to be used as qualification for the Championship section for the London Marathon though and Swansea is one of them.

Hopefully she’ll be able to perform to a similar level or better at Swansea, which is notorious for being a fast, flat course. That should help her achieve the best possible result she can.

Back in race action a couple of weeks after the Gateshead Half Marathon, Katie was featuring in the May 5 which was the next fixture in the Dorset Road Race League. Although the was a fixture clash with the Netley 10k which was a Hampshire Road League race, Bournemouth AC still had some good numbers for the May 5 and the ladies, in particular, were out in force.