Afternoon all.
Race report
Milborne 10, although it measures 9.79 miles! Today because of very dangerous running conditions at the start of the course they had to move the start forward so more like 91/2 miles.
Conditions as I said were pretty dangerous at the start, the road had flooded and obviously with the freezing temperature it was literally an ice rink! Apart from one or two black icy areas aroung the course the rest of it was fine. One guy apparently slipped and hit his head on the pavement at the start, which I understand caused him to have a fit, so he needed hospital treatment. I coudn't find out anymore after the race, but hope he's ok!
Anyway, after a very strange start of trying to dodge icy patches we were off for a 2 mile flat stretch along country roads. My pace felt comfortable at this stage and I was running with another lady from my club who has pb's far superior to mine. We chatted on and off and I thought just enjoy this. The scene was beautiful with white fields and trees. My hands however for the first 2 miles were like icicles. Not for long though!
After 2 miles the course hit the first of the hills, the next 5 miles were hills and undulations. At this first hill my club mate took off and I felt my calves tightening up. They felt terrible and I went through a bit of a bad patch. The gap opens so fast when you hit a bad patch and my club mate pulled a good 200metres on me. I thought at this stage that was it, I was in for a rough ride.
The next 2 miles were mind over matter and lots of talking to my conscience telling it that it was ok to back off the pace. Two more of my male club mates passed me on one of 3 steep hills and I just tried to hang on to the back of them. My left leg went totally numb and I felt like I was running on a stump! I tried stamping it down hard to get the feeling back, but past experience told me the only way to restore feeling was to slow down.
Approaching a hill at about mile 5 I felt I got a 2nd wind and could feel my pace lift and see my club mates getting closer to me. I dug in and decided to push harder. One by one I picked off my club mates and continued to push on.
For some reason I felt as if I was having a rubbish run and because of this I decided not to even look at my watch from the 3 mile point.
The last 2 miles were the same flat miles of the beginning. I kept the same work rate going here, hurting I was, but information fed back to me was I was the 2nd lady. I was determined to hang on to this position at this stage of the race and boy was I glad to see the same icy finish. Couldn't sprint in because of the conditions, but so very pleased to retain my postion and get a pb for this course, even though it was a shorter route this year.
Last year ran: 71.52
Time today: 68.52
From this time I would most definitely have got a pb of sub 71mins for 10 miles. Never mind, there's always next month!
Oh yea my prize: a meddle, £7.50 (my race fees) and then we got 1st ladies team so more wine to celebrate with.
