The mission for Katie Gunn at the Swansea Half Marathon was simple. Finish in under 1 hour 28 minutes to achieve a Championship qualifying time for the London Marathon. That was a time well within her capabilities and she’d already ran a 1:27:12 at Gateshead five weeks earlier so she had every reason to be confident. Only certain races count for London qualification though and the Swansea Half was one of them so that was why she had to go out and produce the goods again.

The route for the Swansea Half Marathon starts in front of the Swansea Arena, heading out towards Singleton and through the city centre, passing Brangwyn Hall and Castle ruins. It’s then over to the National Waterfront Museum and out to Mumbles where the lighthouse comes into view. It’s then a five mile stretch along Swansea Bay before joining the road leading onto the finishing straight at Swansea Arena.

Going through her first mile in 6:28, Katie then registered a 6:24 for her second mile and a 6:23 for her third mile. The fourth mile was on a slight uphill trajectory and Katie went through that in 6:36 before posting a 6:20 for her fifth mile which contained quite a bit of downhill.

That meant she’d gone through the first five miles in 32:23 which was an average pace of 6:29. It was so far so good for Katie and that stage and she was on course to absolutely smash her target.

She continued with a 6:36 for her sixth mile before hitting 6:30 pace of just under for her next three miles. That took her to nine miles in 58:39, putting her average pace at that point at 6:34.

Starting to find it a little tougher after that, her pace did drop a touch and she ran a 6:42 for her tenth mile. She’d gone through the 10 mile point in just under 1 hour 5 minutes, leaving her with just 5k left. Getting through the eleventh mile in 6:48, she went on to complete the 12th one in 6:49. That left just a mile and a bit remaining.

Finding the strength to get back to her earlier pace, she clocked a 6:31 for her thirteenth mile before a fast finish saw her reach the line in a chip time of 1:25:54. That was an average pace of 6:32 for the run and was enough to put her 13th out of the 1,441 women in the race. Her overall position was 121st out of 3,830.

Although she’d done really well to finish that high, the positions and placings didn’t really matter on this occasion. It was all about time and she’d easily beaten her required sub 1:28 time. In fact, she’d ran over two minutes faster, which showed she was well above that level. Now she can go forth and sign up for her first ever marathon. And what an event to do it in!

It will of course mean a different type of training is required to what she normally does and she’s only ever gone up to 15 miles before so it will be a challenge. But it will be one that she’ll certainly rise to, with the ability and the attitude she has. Plus she’s got plenty of time to start practicing those long runs ahead of the big day in April.

In the near future though, Katie’s next tasks saw her commit to a double race weekender, with the Purbeck 10k on Friday evening and the Alresford 10k on Sunday. That was sure to be another good challenge to take on and it would be interesting to see how she fared in two races in the space of a few days.

The race was won by Omar Ahmed of Birchfield Harriers in a sensational time of 1:03:02. That was enough to see off Swansea’s very own Dewi Griffiths who was 2nd in 1:03:40. They were way ahead of anyone else, with Dean Williamson of Colchester Harriers claiming 3rd in 1:07:54 and Michael Ward of Cardiff AC taking 4th in 1:08:08.

Emily Marchant of Swansea Harriers was 1st female, clocking a time of 1:17:40 which put her 31st overall. Alice Kelly of Exmouth Harriers was 2nd female in 1:19:41, putting her 50th overall and that was just enough to edge her ahead of Sioned Howells, also of Swansea who got over the line in 1:19:47. She was 52nd overall.