Dt2 - behave - 13 "easy" miles at 6.30 pace!! I guessone man's easy is another's all out effort!
You are right though - beautiful weather for a race this morning, especially the Ridgeway 15.5k which takes in the delights of the Ashridge estate and Pitstone Hill. Very chilly to start this morning, but crisp and clear.
My chief target today was to beat my longest standing course PB from 2006 of 62:38. All other PBs have been beaten by a good way, but not this one for some reason. I came close last year, but no cigar. So, last night I duly loaded up the GPS to keep track of last year's splits and pace, to try and use the info to edge ahead. But....
Got out of the car at the race, where's my Garmin? In the kitchen drawer at home! Doh!! Oh well, good start, but at least it wasn't a 10k or something that really benefits from knowing your pace.
So, warmed up with a few laps of the sports field near the finish area then a jog to the start, where I had a quick chat with Frank, a couple of runners who I've been close to recently and Guy Woollett, who I was intending to use as a pacer if he was at the same level as last year before to make up for my lack of GPS!!
Well, off we went, for the first 2 miles on flattish tarmac, at a fair pace (if only I'd known what it was!). A long-time rival, Owen Byrne went off very fast, too fast I thought, so I decided to try and take it a bit easy and reel him in later - a fast start is very dangerous on this course given the hills about to come! Meanwhile, Guy was obviously on better form than he thought, or was letting on, as he caught up close to Frank. Last year's winner soon disappeared into the distance, and I was hovering about 8th place before overtaking Owen and thinking I'd pull ahead..
Not much changed when we got up the hill past the Ashridge monument, and I was running on my own with about 100m clear either side as we dodged the hoards of dog walkers, DofE students and pram pushers. Some Leighton Buzzard guy came out of no where and left me for dead - this was tinged with relief as at first I thought it was Owen and I was slowing. A few more ks went past, with no idea how I was doing other than my relative position, when I was overtaken by a young lad from Vale of Aylesbury - again, relieved it wasn't Owen. Couldn't manage to hold on to him, and off we went down a slippy, slightly dodgy downhill before coming out of the trees and on toward Pitstone Hill, where a galnce behind revealed Owen had made up a lot of ground on me. By this time, my legs were feeling very sore, and my hips and back were hurting. With Guy miles ahead and Owen just yards behind I was starting to get a bit despondent and wondering why I was doing so badly, and with no watch to tell me otherwise! A short, sharp climb that precedes a slow section of rolling, greasy chalk upland with splendid views out from the Chiltern scarp - if you're brave or stupid enough to look! On the downhill Owen passed me - hes' a demon descender! A loud "ouch" revealed he's slightly twisted an ankle, but somehow still managed to run on (he was hobbling in the car park later), and I couldn't close the gap - mentally very hard! Anyway, before too long we were back on the road for the 2 mile flattish run-in to the finish. I was hoping to make a dent in the two guys ahead and pushed on, but even though I could see them tiring, I didn't have anything left in the tank to speed up and my legs were screaming at me. A glance over my shoulder with 500m to go showed a red vest - Handy X? Trevor? Probably! Just managed to keep it together to cross the line in 9th with what I thought was going to be a slow time. I asked Owen his time, and was really pleased when he said 62:27, though I thought I was more than 15 secs behind him. It wasn't that I was running sl
