Last year I astonished myself by completing this race in just over the hour and nabbing the M50 top slot. This time around I was setting no real expectation about the race after a winter of not-very-focused training, no races and some minor niggles.
The morning began wet, with the forecast of rain clearing and the possibility of the clouds opening up. There were plenty of friendly faces in race HQ, including a bunch of fellow mature chaps from Lordshill, with whom I shared sentiments about diet and injury prevention.
I tried to position myself close enough to the front that I wouldn't get clogged in traffic in the funnel after the start, but without getting swept up with the fast crew. I think I judged this about right, but it was nevertheless a busy start. I felt relaxed as I headed past Old Sarum and through the Woodfords. Three or four runners pulled away in the first few minutes, but after that I was gradually moving through the field.
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| At the start... |
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| ...and after 2k |
Everything went pretty smoothly. I was ready for the two hills in the second half and enjoyed the glide back down to the valley. I was working hard by the time I arrived at the path leading to the track - just over a km to go. At this point I was about 30m behind two guys. I thought a couple of times that I was catching them... but they kept their pace and I couldn't find anything to spare as we got onto the race track. I finished about 4 seconds behind them. 'What age category are you?', I couldn't resist asking the older-looking of the two. '50' he replied. Too bad!
So there it was - I finished in 1:01:23, second in age category. Here are my stats. A couple of notches down on last year, but I had enjoyed it and held a respectable pace on relatively untrained legs. I couldn't ask for more.
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| Final hill |
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| Couldn't quite catch him |
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