Determined to set the record straight after an agonising experience at the London Marathon earlier in the year, Sophie Read soon selected a new target race for the autumn and got back on the training gravy train.

This time she’ll be tackling the Chester Marathon and will be hoping to beat her London Marathon time of 3 hours 46 minutes. Whilst that wasn’t a bad time for a first marathon by any means, it wasn’t what she’d been training for so although it was a good achievement to go from where she was when she first joined Bournemouth AC to that level, it was tinged with disappointment.

She’d really thrown herself into the training and had managed to hit her target pace in the marathon sessions and done a lot of good long runs as well so it was really frustrating that it hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped on the day.

This time she’d taken a slightly more relaxed approach to her training and hasn’t put so much pressure on herself to get every single marathon session done and be hitting her target pace for blocks of miles in her long runs.

She’d put enough work in to get into the sort of shape where she can comfortably run at her target pace for a long period of time though and if conditions are good on the day and she’s runs to the best of her ability, she should end up in and around the region of 3:30.

Marathons can be brutal at times though and sometimes unexpected things can happen which completely throw you. Her approach will be simply to give it her best shot though and see what happens. What will be will be and she will accept the result, whatever it brings.

Often during a marathon block of training, athletes will sign up for a half marathon. It’s an opportunity to gage where they are with their fitness and assess what sort of time they should be targeting for their marathon.

The Southampton Running Festival provided an opportunity for Sophie to do just that as there was a Half Marathon race in that. The course was six laps round Southampton Common and had nice surroundings, heading through parks and woodland.

To make it a little more challenging, the lap had a fairly tough climb on it which Sophie had to negotiate six times. That would likely make it more difficult for her to keep to her desired pace. She’s usually quite metronomic with her splits though so she wouldn’t like it if there were sections where she had to go a bit slower.

To being with she was going at around 7 minute mile pace and managed to keep that up for the first three laps which took her to the eighth mile. After that the hills began to effect her more and she was forced to slow the pace down on the inclines.

That meant dropping to around 7:30 pace for the the miles with the hills on the last three laps. She still managed to get back on the pace for the miles that didn’t have the hill though and finished with her joint fastest mile of the race at 6:53.

That was enough to see Sophie reach the finish line in 1:33:28. That put her in 15th place out of 232 finishers. It was also enough to earn her a place on the podium as 3rd female which was a fantastic result for Sophie. That was out of 85 women.

The race was won by Lawrence Pearman-Kanza in a time of 1:20:07. That put him two minutes ahead of Andrew Palmer who got 2nd in 1:22:05. Matt Stanbury came 3rd in 1:22:32 and Littledown Harriers man Vince Fowler took 4th in 1:23:32.

Elspeth Turner was first female and 5th overall in a fantastic time of 1:23:50 and she is in the V60 category which makes that a phenomenal achievement.

Emma Williams was the only other woman to get round quicker than Sophie. She registered a time of 1:27:40 which put her in 10th place overall.

Sophie wasn’t the only Bournemouth AC member in action in the Half Marathon race at Southampton Running Festival that day. One of the club’s newer members, Kitty Cook, was competing as well.

Managing to keep her splits pretty consistent throughout despite the incline she had to keep facing, Kitty was between 7:20 and 7:45 for most of her splits. She actually got faster near the end though, clocking a 7:14 for her 11tth mile and then a 7 minute mile for her 13th split.

That suggested it was a very strong run from Kitty and she’d paced it really well. Reaching the finish line in 1:38:26, Kitty was 7th placed female and 28th overall. That was a result to be proud of for her and there will no doubt be good things to come from her once she starts to tackle the league fixtures.

Southampton star Richard Waldron won the 10k in a time of 32:45 which put him close to two minutes ahead of his nearest rival. Charlotte Brown was first female and 4th overall in a time of 38:09.

Rachael Haddow of Poole AC was 2nd female in 40:31 which put her in 8th place overall and Julie Wargent of Egdon Heath Harriers was third lady in 42:39 which put her 14th overall.

It was around two minutes off the time Sophie managed at the Fleet Half Marathon in March but it did have quite a bit more elevation, having to go up that hill six times which amounted to 521ft of ascent.

The fact she kept her splits consistent throughout the race, aside from the last three times she had to tackle the hill, shows it was a strong and controlled run from Sophie. That can only give her confidence for her impending marathon.

Getting a place on the podium was absolutely not what she was expecting at all. She doesn’t lack any inner belief in her own ability but she’s also realistic enough to know that it takes something special to finish in the top three of reasonably big race. She did it this time though and it was another great confidence booster for her as it showed that she has the potential to be one of the quickest ladies in any given field.

It won’t be long before she heads up to Chester for her marathon and she’ll be excited to face the challenge and ready to give it her absolute best, as she always does.