January was always going to be an interesting month for this challenge, as it marked the start, but also was devoid of races in comparison to other months. One of the main races I had identified for January was York's Brass Monkey Half Marathon, however by the time I had decided I was able to enter the race, the registration had already closed. The other factor making January a difficult month for this challenge was the weather, the heavy snowfall this weekend was going to make any run this weekend difficult and slightly dangerous, coincidently the Brass Monkey Half Marathon was cancelled due to the unsafe conditions.
As I had missed out on running the Brass Monkey, I had already convinced myself that I should be running a Half Marathon this weekend by myself to make up for it. With bad conditions on most roads and pavements, I opted to run along the River Water Way trail as I thought this would be the safest, flattest route available. Running a Half Marathon can be challenging in the best of conditions, so without much training for longer distances and in 6 inches of snow, today was always going to be hard.
The heavy snow fall and patches of ice had forced me to run into work every day this week and I had to run four miles to the start of the River Water Way trail, so I was not expecting my legs to have much left in them today. Fortunately for the first few miles I felt fresh, the snow wasn't slowing me down and I could barely feel the cold. After around seven miles, when I turned around to head back towards Lincoln I felt my legs and feet feel as if they were going numb with the cold, and I could tell the next half of the run was going to be punishin.
When I reached 21.13km I checked my watch to see that I had not finished within my two hour target, but forgave myself considering the conditions. The route was very quiet, unsurprising given the snow, but definitely a trail I'd run again, maybe when there is much less snow on the ground.
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