On a cold Sunday February morning,
Race line up with a classy Elite athletes ( including Steph Twell in fine form) along with some GB/ England runners looking to find speed ahead of marathons. After what was a terrible few days of snow for most of the country, and the one safest place that hadn’t been dumped with it. It was certainly the first below freezing temperatures and shivering before the start. I went with Alex and friend Trevor who decided to come as I mentioned it was a good course, although a few changes from when I last raced it. Truth be told, I wasn’t in 10k PB shape and it was early in my race season but always good progress. I needed to put in a good time in to contribute for a block of hard racing and training. Focus was also on the long distance key races which you will hear about along the 2019 journey.
I also knew that my next 10k wouldn’t be until May time before Comrades. The next few months was all about track long distance races, the marathon and then a build up for the autumn GB events. Back to the race de-brief, I had a few crazy moments of dashing to the toilet for last minute nerves ( a common trend with me, anyone that knows me!) before we had a long walk to the start which was in a side road of the Goodwood track ( Chichester). Without further thought and unexpected I didn’t hear a gun just a few mutters ” Go” and off we trailed down nice smooth country roads with a few climbs.
During the race I went from cold to hot as the morning started to warm up and initially a little distressed when seeing all the females racing past me and ones I didn’t recognize in the first few K. Relief had it that after the charge I started to pull back in some of the runners. Just a little too late but maintained my pace in the last few k’s which was on the track.
Alex was out for a hard training session having run the Army champs so he ran alongside me, we aimed for sub 37 and almost made it, although we were confident the 37.01 was sub based on not being on the start – line.
Pleased with my performance and showed progressed…