March was supposed to go out like a lamb, for heaven's sake. It had been raining fairly solidly for two days, and it was still miserable as we drove down to Boscombe. Mercifully the rain stopped, but it was a chilly 5 degrees with a nippy sea breeze.
We met the rest of the OS team on the sea front, with plenty of whose-idea-was-this banter going on. A reluctant strip down to racing kit and a sort-of warm up later, and we were ready to go.
This is very much a club runners' event. Very different to last Sunday's outing; everyone seemed calm and focused. We had a rather ineffectual briefing, in which we were told to keep to either the pavement or the road, but I wasn't clear which. The start was brisk, as I expected, but it took me a few minutes to settle to a pace... it's been a while since I've done a hard-surfaced, flattish race like this - the last time was the Chichester 10k where I struggled to keep going.
The outward leg was on a tarmac path on the foreshore. It felt a bit relentless, with over 4km in a straight line with no real change of scenery. Then uphill, away from the coast, and the first slope felt quite a shock.
We circled around in a small loop before heading home on the coast road. I was overtaking others and felt OK, but with a mile to go a group of runners edged past me and I couldn't hold them. Then the fun bit - a great plunging chase downhill to the promenade and then a flat sprint finish. I overtook someone, but just couldn't hold him on the sprint.
In 2015 I ran this in 40:28. I really wanted to beat 40 this time. Despite my annoyance at being outgunned in the sprint, I was really chuffed to come home in 39:37. The lovely Mrs S also did a blinder, beating her expectations. A good morning out for Team S and Team OS.
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