Evening,
Phew, what a day its been.Race report coming up, so be warned, get yourself a nice cup of tea.
Well done to ASN and Melissa for the long runs today, and to the few running at Rhayader.Also to NE, very noble to let a 15 year old beat you.
What-20 mile trail race(report below)
Why-A pre London must event this one.
Last Hard-Mmmm, today i think.
Last rest-2 days.
Compton Downland 20 Miler Race Report
First thing to say is that the ankle got through it in one piece, no obvious problems so far so that looks good.
This race is a classic in our area,fantastic off road route, a good few hills for me, superb drink stops in the middle of nowhere supplied with cakes etc, and even a meal in the school canteen at the end for all runners,its got it all.Not bad for 12 quid.
Definitely shorts and vest weather today, and was pretty warm by the end,my face caught a bit of the sun, so i'm glad i wasn't tempted to join the other nutters running the 40 mile option.
Started off steadily with the aim of treating it as a decent paced training run, but within a mile the guy leading had shot off and i found myself in a group of around 7 or 8 holding positions 2 to 9.Not really what i'd had in mind for the run but there you go,you can only do your own thing and just get on with it.
By 6/7 miles the first of the hills were kicking in and our group whittled down to 4.I still felt fine,but was conscious that the guys around seemed like they wanted to keep pushing it on so i did my own thing again and dropped off them before re-catching them all at the next set of hills at 11/12 miles.
By now the day was hotting up,so i made a definite effort to get on board all the fluids i could even if it meant stopping for 30 secs at the drinks stops,i was glad of that later on.
A couple more of the blokes in our little group paid for their earlier optimistic pace and fell away,leaving just the 2 of us together in 2nd and 3rd places at around 14 miles.On reflection, we had a good little duel from there on in.Each slight climb we came to i would build a gap, and then each time he'd close me down after half a mile on the flat again.Bit of a bugger for then that the last few miles are mainly downhill, and sure enough he took off to a 70 or 80 metre gap.
With 2 miles to go it was stinking hot, and as hard work as it would've been anyway we were hammering along,but the gap didn't really and i wasn't too arsed about trying to catch him so i settled on 3rd place.Earlier in the run he'd been slighlty ahead of our group adn gone off course before we shouted him back, so all in all he'd probably run 400 m longer than me,so i don't begrudge him that,it seemed only fair he got 2nd.
Anyway, i finished in 2.14.53, and picked up some beer for my prize so you can't complain at that.Then got home in time to watch the World XC and 3 games of rugby,so not a bad day.The beers never stood a chance.
Good luck everybody for tomorrow.
