Preview

Advance Warning

Tomorrow is the big day.

Today is:-

1. Re-read the race instructions
2. Check have everything needed
3. Prepare list of things to do on day
4. Select sacrificial warm top for pre-race waiting around
5. Arrange drop-off and pick up by Mrs Taxi

My number is high and orange. This means that I start off from the sheep pen at the back of the grid. Long tramp from the runners’ village through the tunnel into Grove Street and then turn back into Henrietta Street. Walk almost half a mile to the start! Advice is to arrive early.

Keep Cool

The Bath Half Marathon website shows the route.

Down Poultney Street towards the Holburne Museum. Right into Poultney Road, under the railway bridge at North Parade junction, curve around the back of Widcombe - past the deepest canal lock in Britain, the hotel by the canal where we had our reception, and the rear entrance of The Ram. Cross the Avon at Churchill Bridge by the new bus station - still not big enough or integrated with the railway station.

The Busometer - Bath Bus Station

Turn left past the end of Quay House, where I worked in Room 101 in the last Century. Curve right past Green Park old station where the Somerset and Dorset trains started for Bournemouth. Slow and Dirty they called it - but it was faster and more direct than now (change at Southampton). Then an uphill bit past the curry house and sewing machine shop to Queen Square.

Exit Queen Square past the old Register Office where we were married. Pound down the Upper Bristol Road alongsde the allotments and Vickie Park. Somewhere about here I will be lapped by the eventual winner. The instructions say Keep Left.  This is not a political statement.

Gasometer - Bath

On past The New Westhall, and Bath Coke and Light, to the north end of Windsor Bridge where the mini-Tesco site still awaits planning permission.Uphill past The Weston and The Old Red House and the long drag down Newbridge Road.

Every town has a “street of a thousand B&Bs”. In Bath, Newbridge Road is it.

Cross the Avon again - near where I had my retirement “do” at a not to be recommended venue so I won't mention it - and turn back towards Bath along Lower Bristol Road.

Past the southern end of Windsor Bridge and past all the car dealers. Under the 10Km arch - or you don’t get a time - and back across Churchill Bridge for lap 2. This is going to be a hard bit. You are supposed to do lap 2 faster than lap 1 - on the basis that part of lap 1 is warming up and on lap 2 the crowd of runners thins out so overtaking is easier.

A reliable source told me that the hardest bit is the Lower Bristol Road second time around. On this long stretch if the fatigue and long view of the distance still to be covered does not depress you then the militant nihilism of the new architecture will.

Don’t go under the 10Km arch second time around - that would confuse the timing chip! After that it seems to be a relentless rise to the finish. Don’t sprint to the finish is the official advice. Chance would be a fine thing. Tortoise not hare.

Drink!

Bath - World Heritage City.