It was about as hot as it gets in April. It was a full-on blue sky day, and Mrs S and I were in Salisbury for our first outing at the 10-mile road race.
From the off, part of me was feeling a bit leaden, a bit lacking in joie de courir. I tried to set myself a sensible but reasonably ambitious pace, but found myself looking at my watch quite a lot and trying to ward off the feeling that this was hard work and I was looking forward to the end.
The countryside was glistening in its blossomy fresh springiness, and the course, heading north up the Avon valkey, was simply lovely. I overtook plenty of people, but I could see a lot of people stretching way ahead of me... this was clearly a strong and competitive field.
At 5 miles we crossed the river and started heading for home, which was welcome, but we were now going into the (light) wind and there were a few tricky little hills on what was otherwise a reasonably flat course. I got overtaken a couple of times around mile 7 by runners who looked like they had got their pacing right, while I was in decline by now. I panted for almost the whole of the last 2 miles, but with no speed in my legs. I gurney and heaved around the track at the finish and clocked it at 1:04:07; a couple of minutes adrift from what I'd hoped.
So what happened? I think I was a bit weary before the race, after 3 interval sessions last week and a fairly strenuous 3 hours of garden work yesterday. I think the heat may have got me down a bit too. It was an excellently organised and very friendly race, and full marks to the organisers. My lesson was that 10 miles needs to be treated with a bit more respect... I'm going to rest properly before the Southampton Half in 2 weeks.
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