Racing again! Hursley 10k

Last week I did three steady runs and yesterday I paced 20 minutes at Southampton parkrun; all part of a planned recovery from an embryonic Achilles' heel.  So far so good.  Today, once more unto the breach, and back to Hursley, whose 10k I've been running almost every year since its beginning in 2006.

From studying the entries yesterday I could see that Alan Graham, Jon Osment and David Blackman were all running.  Fantastic!  Three of my deadliest foes, and all 4 of us contenders for the M50 slot.  We found ourselves together at the start, all slightly over-egging our excuses (injuries, yesterday's running, getting on for 60).  A countdown, a horn, and off we went.

My plan was to keep the Three Amigos ahead of me for a good while.  However, the first km was across grass that disguised all manner of lumps and ruts.  I found myself edging ahead and decided that I was running sensibly enough so keep calm and keep going.

From about 2k to 6k I was on my own.  I was running close to my threshold but felt OK, and it was great to be running hard again.  I then became aware of someone in orange behind me.  Oh no, it's Jon in his Eastleigh strip, he's really out-paced me.  But it wasn't Jon, a younger bloke I didn't know (from the results, Jeremy Wilson).  He edged past, and he remained about 30m ahead.

Kms 6 to 8 were entirely uphill.  I was labouring hard and keeping Jeremy within range, but I couldn't close the gap.  Every couple of minutes I cast nervous rearward glances, but no one was on my immediate tail.  Out of Ampfield wood and into the long avenue to the finish, I felt OK but couldn't quite find the oomph to close the gap, and I finished in 39:05, six seconds behind Jeremy.  I was in 7th place overall, I had beaten my three foes, but I was nevertheless 2nd M50, nearly a minute behind Neil Richmond of Eastleigh.  Here are my stats.

I dug around for the historic results for the H10k...
2010 - 5th in 39:04
2011 - 10th in 40:33
2012 - 4th in 38:30
2013 - 5th in 37:54
2014 - injured
2015 - 8th in 39:08
2016 - racing in Ireland
2017 - 9th in 40:10
Let's see how long I can hold on to the top 10.

Back (still a bit cautiously) on the wagon.  There's now much work to do in preparation for the Beachy Head marathon, six weeks from today.  Let's do this!