With a field of over 1000, this was a larger-than-average club race. The race HQ area was busy, and after the 10-minute walk from the car, there wasn't a lot of time left to visit the loo, stash bags and get warmed up. I ended up having to run through a ditch to get near to the start line. It was a very friendly atmosphere, and it was great to catch up with Craig Rumble - we'd met before at a few races, most recently at the Bath half.
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| With the lovely Mrs S at the start |
At the side of the road was a massive military gun, which was to be pulled around the course by a team of beefy chaps, having been fired to start the race. The actual start was very sudden - no words, just a bang which startled everyone, and off we went.
The first 4k is almost entirely uphill, and was into the wind. Yesterday it would have been a really hard slog. I managed to moving slowly up the pack, and caught up with Craig just before the highest point at 4k.
The profile suggested that the remaining 6k was mainly downhill, which was true enough, but belied a couple of tough drags with 'no pain... no gain... :)' painted on the tarmac. By this stage I was a couple of paces behind Mark Urbanowski, and we stayed in constant formation for the rest of the race. At about 9k there was a sharp dip down and a tough little hill on the other side, at which point I heard footsteps approaching. I thought it would be Craig, but it was a youngster (Alex Fisher) who shot past us.
The final section was a gradual downhill, with signs counting down the finish every 100m, and some droll captions ('Pain is just a French word for bread'). I kept the pressure up, but couldn't close on Mark U - I finished 4 seconds behind him.
I finished in 12th place with a split time of 37:22, which I was very happy with. Here are my stats. Mrs S, naturally, knocked out another PB, and we were both delighted with a tremendous morning out
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| With Craig at the finish |
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