New Club Record: Bath Half Marathon

Andrew Mitchell reports:

On a course well-advertised for its PB potential the Bath Half didn’t disappoint for the two TVH runners – Tracy Barlow and Matthieu Ribault – who undertook the 13.1 miles. It wasn’t all plain sailing due to a weather forecast of heavy rain and blustery showers. Thankfully the showers passed before the start of the race leaving only the spectators and a few unfortunate runners to suffer the downpour.

The course consisted of two laps initially running through the centre of Bath and then away from the city and into blustery winds. The latter half of each lap therefore came as a welcome relief to be out of the breeze.

Tracy and Matthieu both used their marathon experience to go out hard in a fast field of competitors, run an evenly paced race and strike home for those all important PBs. Matthieu finished 33rd overall while Tracy finished 93rd overall and 7th woman. Matthieu clocked 73:05, knocking 30 seconds off his PB in his second half marathon already this year. Tracy managed to slice more than five minutes off her previous time, setting a new TVH club record of 77:47 – a terrific result.

With the support from the spectators lining the entire route and music provided by local bands, Bath Half certainly lived up to high expectations.