We parked up in Cheriton, and soon enough met up with a few Romsey folk - Alice, Mark W and Emily from Romsey, plus Paul from OS and his brother Gary.
From the start, we had a natty little hill that got the heart moving. And from there on it was classic Hampshire chalk countryside, with hills, woods, fields and tracks. Stubbington had done a wonderful job mowing many of the narrow paths, so we didn't get tormented by stinging nettles. Thankfully, there was a light cloud cover that took the edge off the heat.
I was largely on my own after 15 minutes or so, but every now and then I'd overtake someone. About half way, a couple of guys came moving past me; I always admire runners with that level of discipline and control. But as the second half progressed, I caught each of them in turn.
The race was billed as being 11.5 miles. I decided to assume that it would be 20k, knowing that was being quite conservative... but I'd just passed 17k when a marshal called out 'half a mile to go!'. At this point I had some guy I'd just overtaken a few paces behind me. I had to rapidly move up a gear, and tore down hill and into a field from where I could see the finish. I crossed the line in 1:15:36, 12 seconds ahead of my rival, and in fifth place overall. Here are my stats.
 |
| Fearing I was about to be pipped to the post |
A decent weekend of trail running, a return to racing after a few weeks, and a good curtain-opener on the approach to the Snowdonia marathon in July.
 |
| The Romsey gang |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.