Romsey 2, London 1

A very interesting week of running.  Last Wednesday I took part in the OS team in the annual Civil Service 10k race, a familiar event, but this year hosted at the Olympic park in Stratford.

It was my first ever trip to the park (unless you count a tour of the site in all its contaminated awfulness, shortly after the Olympic award in 2005). I was impressed by all the attention to detail and in particular by the wild spaces in the river channel.  Here's the OS crew:

The course was a complex set of tight interlocking laps with two hard 180-degree turns and various sharp corners.   Four laps in theory, but in reality it was eight mini there-and-back laps, albeit with some good views and some interesting over-and-under bridge combinations.

I set off, despite my intentions, a bit too fast and before long found myself behind James Clarke, a sure sign that I was at risk of over-reaching myself.  I stayed with him till about halfway, at which point we were getting close to Rob Finch (who had beaten me in the Romsey 5 in January), but the two of them began to drift ahead.  I started to struggle with the whole multi-lap thing, and finished in 38:23, 5 seconds behind James and 18 behind Rob.  I then had a comedy rush to get showered, dressed up in a suit and get off to Westminster for a meeting.

On Sunday I ran two mini-races.  It was the Romsey Relay Marathon, an event that has been going for a while and growing in popularity.  10 legs of 2.6 miles, with each leg comprising 2 laps of 1.3 miles - an interesting format.  Both Romsey RR and OS Runners entered teams, but today I was running for OS. 

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking ten... about 70 teams went off together.  Within minutes, vast gaps opened up, with a clear group of 3 in the lead, including OS's Tony Killilea.  By the end of the second lap, the Romsey cricket club (cricket!) had opened up a 3 minute lead.

I ran legs 4 and 6, which in practice meant 15 minutes on, 15 off and then 15 on again.  15 minutes (7:30 per lap) was a bit of a stretch target, and in fact just out of reach.  For my first leg I ran 7:45 and 7:39; for my second I ran 7:46 and 7:32.  This wasn't my normal kind of race, but I loved it - I felt strong, and I was overtaking nicely.

Even better, the OS A team managed to climb from 3rd place to eventually win the whole thing by 9 minutes.  You might say that we smashed it.  What a great morning out and what a result.