Today has been a long time coming that's for sure - six whole months of sweat, suffering and effort. But it's been worth it, I think, despite those dark moments where I've wondered what it was all for. Even better I've achieved my initial goal of winning the series overall in my age category and that's something to be proud of I guess. My problem is that victory is only fleeting and when it's been digested, well, I'm looking for the next challenge. Maybe it's good to stay hungry though?
Anyway returning to today's race my main goal was not to blow up, suffer like a dog and live to regret my aches and pains all week; it seems that this is becoming a bit of a theme in my racing adventures but I can only work with what I've been given. So at the start I hung back and left the blocks at a very sensible pace - a little over 4 min/km to be precise. Unlike last month this felt properly comfortable and I felt very able to cruise along like this for as long as it took; in fact at the end of the first lap I still felt very much within myself and had to be careful not to get carried away!
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| Pretty early on - just cruising |
What's funny though is how my expectations have recalibrated themselves - when I glanced at my watch at the halfway mark I couldn't help but smile at the time of 20:30. As much as this is a long way from my best it's also a world away from the torture of tight muscles that I endured in August and for that I'm grateful. Still I couldn't help but lift the pace slightly when I got to the final lap - not so much an attack as a gentle acceleration - and right there I found the area that I need to work on. While my legs said yes, my lungs said no and so general fitness is, as it so often is, the limiting factor.
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| I probably should have sprinted harder - right? |
That said I managed to bring back a few guys on the run in and I felt very much in contention in the little group that I'd pulled myself up to - which explains how the last kilometre was run at 3:51 min/km pace and that still wasn't a flat-out sprint. There is room for improvement! Now before the race today I'd decided that I wouldn't be entering the winter series this year as a break would be beneficial. Wrong! Keeping active is the only way forward and besides when I was chatting to Maurice Raynor, the race organiser, afterwards he mentioned that entries are down this year - possibly because Runners World has got the link pointing to the summer series or something. Well we can't have that and £60 is a small price to pay - although the financial cost of the races is the least of my concerns!
Oh yes, and just for completeness, I crossed the line in 41:07 and this was good enough for 36th place (out of 610 finishing). On the other hand I was third V40 and the first two were right in front of me according to the results; I definitely should have gone harder at the end! More importantly the bulk of my kilometre splits were within the 4:05-4:10 range and that's pretty damn consistent if I say so myself! Although this could all change given that the timing system wasn't started properly. Local races eh? Bunch of amateurs.....
Distance: 11.6 miles
Time: 1h 26m 31s