After several days where I had consumed far too many mince pies, high-fat snacks, chocolate and red wine, I came into this race in a relaxed frame of mind with modest ambitions! As it turned out, it might have paid to aim a bit higher…For most of the race I ran at a half-marathon rather than 10M effort (by heart-rate) as I wanted to enjoy a speedy work-out as opposed to another put-it-all-on-the-line ball-breaker. I was surprised therefore to find myself at the 3M mark with an average pace of 5:55/mile. The next two miles are mostly uphill before mile 7 takes you back down. For the second race in a row, the Garmin was reading an average mile-pace about 2s/mile slower than I was actually achieving. The result of this was twofold; 1. I relaxed, thinking that a PB (sub 6:02/mile pace) was not going to happen given the last 2 miles of the race are quite tough and 2. ended up missing a PB by 3s!
Despite this apparent failure, I was quite pleased. This is a hilly course and I came in to it on the back of several days of Xmas binge-eating/drinking, plus I ran a conservative race. Also, I’ve not done any speedwork for several weeks.Therefore, all things considered, I think this sets me up quite nicely for some good performances in 2010.
Time – 01:00:23
Pos – 13th (430+ finishers)
MV45 pos – 3rd
Age% score – 80.77%
Thanks to Martyn Annetts for the great photos
