This morning dawned with a bright blue sky, whether I liked it or not, and so today's race was destined to be a warm one! Preparations were relaxed and I felt reasonably confident given that I definitely haven't been over-training lately and my various niggles and injuries are in abeyance. So I tripped on down to the start and jogged easily around the course for a warm-up lap; conditions were nigh on perfect with barely a breeze to ruffle the hair. Even better I bumped into Mac, from the running school, at the start and enjoyed the benefit of my very own photographer and cheer-leader:
|
| Confident and relaxed I like to think |
Buoyed and encouraged, perhaps, and with last month's 7th place in mind I decided to set off at the front and do my best to keep up. For the first kilometre this plan seemed to be working and I settled in at about 10th place; in retrospect this was definitely the high point of my race! As the first lap unfolded I began to realise, from my heavy breathing, that I had over-extended myself but at the same time I didn't want to drop off the pace. So I persevered and still didn't look too bad:
|
| Running strongly up the hill |
However this honeymoon period wasn't to last. As the second lap rolled around I was in trouble and my legs knew all about it; already the pain was emanating from deep inside my muscles and there was a long way to go yet. In fact from this point on things only got uglier as every fibre of my being joined in the chorus of Stop! Stop! Oh how I wanted to as I struggled for air but what choice did I have? Each step took me closer to the finish but with each step I could feel my speed draining away and my pursuers drawing near. In their one's and two's they spanked me; only in the final kilometre was I able to dredge up even a slight defence but it was too little, too late. My splits tell the story just as eloquently:
|
| There is real pain in every one of these bars! |
When, eventually, the finish arrived and I could stagger to a stop all I felt was exhaustion and relief; as a result of my stupidity I suffered like a dog today and, frankly, I deserved to suffer. And yet for all of that I still managed to hold onto 17th place out of 548 runners (with a time of 39:09) and also the 2nd V40 place. In fact I appear to have done enough in the 10K series to have won the V40 overall prize despite there still being two races to go! This is great news, obviously, since this is one my goals for the year; I just hope that the maths doesn't lie!
Distance: 11.3 miles
Time: 1h 22m 18s