The weather on Saturday morning was poor, it was stopped Maryann taking the kids in the car to the beach which allowed me to take the Car rather than run the 7 miles which I was pretty happy with due to the activities I would have to perform during the rest of day.
9.40am Set up the course at Aberdour, late again which was not the best start, I had a few text messages that morning from a few people calling off which is pretty normal, cracked on with setting up, the session which was very intense due to the limited numbers there this meant I could get a much closer eye on the 7 indivduals that had turned up and actually take there split times and anticipated return lap times.
Limekilns next Birthday party then Loch Leven half marathon to work at the Post race massage tent, queues were not that great even though the ever realiable Geoff Pendrill and I were the only two that turned up instead of the manitory 4.
Saturday evening we got an dinner invite from friends which was great to catch up but late to bed.
Slept in for the 9am Church sitting, long lie in was brilliant. When we got back from Church got ready for the 5 miler at Strathallan, was looking at my Personal Best set there 3 years ago was 27.06 which worked out at 5.26 min mile pace mmmmmmmm.
2pm Starting line, this daft idoit was weaving in and out of me I had to push him on the back to let him know that he was in my path, the next time it would a football tackle, back round to the start I was 20meters off the leader Tony from Perth, at this stage 2mins into the race I was on 5.13pace for a mile so God knows what he was doing there no way was I wanting to put too much Lactic into my legs this early on.
Got down the hill over took a few young boys who looked as if they had started to fast, down the first descent still Tony 20meters Ian Stewart 10, average pace went down to 5.14 per mile turned left on the flat for 3/4mile leader was starting to be pulled in up the hill I wasn’t going any faster.
At the top of the hill you turn left to the entrance of the school Ian had caught up and I was 5 meters behind, average pace was on my target area of 5.26 so I thought I would use the slight downhill to increase my pace and decrease my average pace by a bit. Ian followed on round the first half and I could start to feel the strain a bit at keep this quality up for the second half, I thought Christ this is going to be hard, 13.38 at half way, I would need to do the same pace to get anywhere near my best which was going to be interesting.
Both Ian and I were neck and neck I had a slight lead going down the hill for the last time but I couldn’t hear any other steps thereafter so Tony must have dropped off the pace, on the flat I tried to relax myself yet my watch was telling me that any previous bursts of pace had not bettered my overall average pace Christ Sake…..stay relaxed this was the first time I’ve been put under this amount of stress for months which was great and something I needed.
Last Kilometer really starting to feel the toll, bearing in mind I’ve not raced at this pace since Jan and Febuary. Going up the final hill I decided to hand the lead over for Ian to do some work to see if he was able to do. This is also a good way of assessing what kind of state your competition are in, he never had any drive which gave me heart, I drove on onto the lead again, we hit the main road for the final time, final left turn into the school right take advantage of the downhill got 5 meters on Ian came to the Valley before the final straight I was really feeling the stress here but I took stock of what I would have shouted to the Circuiteers at the beach sessions, get your bloody fingers out………. with a minute to go I said to myself right if you want to win this……… try bloody harder for the final 60 secs…..so I tried and tried and managed to get 10 meters or 4secs in front which was a great feeling and a good run out for the legs.
- Personal Best was 27.06 average per mile 5.26 min miles 2007?
- Today 27.32=5.30min miles, 26secs behind or 120meters so not too bad.
Thinking of racing the Black Rock need to bring the class 15mins early on Friday and would need to get a postal entry in tomorrow Monday, watch this space!
Posted under Post Race Feedback
This post was written by Tommy on May 17, 2009
