I warmed up with a jog to the start and a few dynamics stretches but if the truth be told I could have done a better warm up. Yet again the weather was cold, nowhere near like the big freeze of last year, wind was the big news with estimates of a 30 seconds average cost to race potential (Post race discussions).
I originally lined up 3 rows from the front but by the time we had shuffled the 20 feet to the actual start I was about 8 rows back! So when the gun went I did the usual zig-zag sprint start and when the watch bleeped "Mile 1" the reading was 5:34 and I mentally kicked myself, the target was 6:05 so my old enemy the fast start struck again.
I looked at my watch at 9 minutes to make note of when my chest was about explode! The desire to give up right then with view that I ruined my race was most prevalent, but you can never give up, Ron Hill's words from last week ran through my head and pushed on to the 5K turning point.
The last road-bender Photo by Ray McBride |
Thankfully the second half of Dewsbury is downhill (Its an out and back) which helped balance out the strong head wind that everybody commented on post race. With 400 metres to go I got my coaches head on and confronted my "Central Governor". I picked my pace up and focused on beating the runner in front of me, adjusted my running style to match the technical sprinting model and blasted past the runner and made up 15 feet on another runner, almost catching her at the line!
My reward was a shiny new PB of 38:49 and I was the third Royton Road runner back which awarded us 10th team!
Two weeks to the great north-west half marathon and the road to the VLM marches on!
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