A strange thing happened this weekend - Martin and I dragged ourselves out of bed at an unearthly hour and drive down to Colyton to run a race. Almost four months since we last did such a thing...............the difference being that this was just a five mile trot round the flat lanes of Colyton.
This used to be a 10k but has now been reduced to 5 miles - 2 laps of the village instead of the trek across muddy fields to the start and two and a half loops. Also a new race HQ - with parking, toilets and entries all under the same roof - a real luxury on a morning when it was chucking it down with rain.
Richard and Lesley arrived soon after us looking remarkably fresh and well rested after their sojourn across Bodmin moor last weekend. With the Club Championship at a crucial stage the only betrayal of any interest was a casual question regarding whether we had seen Dave Carnell!
At 10.30am the rain stopped as if to order, the sky turned blue and off we set. Martin quickly disappeared into the distance and I tucked in on Richard's heels to see how long I could keep him in sight. I was aiming for 7.20 minute miles due to my appalling lack of fitness, but as usual got carried away by the excitement of it all and ran the first mile in 6.49 - by which time I already knew that I'd gone off way too fast.
Richard was starting to ease gently away from me and it was already beginning to feel like hard work. When I ran the 10k in 2003, I would have sworn the route was dead flat, but now several hills seem to have appeared. It was a relief to turn the corner into the village, out of the wind and to head back up towards the start line (another hill!).
Richard had long since disappeared and as I started the second lap I could hear a runner closing in behind me. My lack of fitness was really beginning to tell now and it was just head down and slog it out. As I passed the 4 mile marker I could tell the runner behind me was female and I started to feel sympathy for Richard - if it was Lesley my plan was to wait until she passed me and then crawl into the nearest ditch and stay there. Fortunately it was an unknown Honiton runner, and I couldn't hear anyone else behind me although I was way too scared to look back!
With two corners and a few hundred yards to go I met Martin trotting back to meet me and with him yelling encouragement I attempted a bit of a sprint to the finish - crossing the line in 37.11, not too far outside my target time, but it was way too hard for such a short race and left me wondering how the hell I managed to run three ultra marathons earlier this year!
In a strange quirk of fate - bearing in mind last week's cruel defeat of Richard - the Westgates managed to get their numbers mixed up so if you look at the results it appears that Lesley beat Richard by over 5 minutes!
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2 comments:
Richard is now training me to run faster in these short races, purely for the pleasure of seeing Lin crawl into a muddy ditch. For the record it was Axe valley runners who muddled our numbers. Having sent out the race numbers with our names clearly written on the front and with a big "F" on mine, they decided to write them the other way round on the back of the envelope. We were going to sort it out on the day but couldn't be bothered, and assumed their memory had failed by the time they sealed the envelope.
I spot a flaw in Richard's plan - we'll both be so far ahead of him when you overtake me Lesley that the whole ditch thing will be over by the time he gets there...............
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