Morning campers!
It's been a while since I last posted on here, not because I haven't wanted to, but I've been so busy at work I actually forgot about my blog. But hey ho, I'm here!
It's now day 19 or something like that of my quest to stop smoking, and I'm still going strong. It has got to the point where smoking isn't even an after thought. I just hope it stays this easy!
I had my first cross country race on Wednesday of this week. It was part of the Lincolnshire Services XC League series, and the race was a 10k off road course in Grantham.
It was a brilliant day for running. Not too hot, not too cold, and hardly any wind. It had rained a little over the last few days, but not enough to worry me.
The race started off with an air horn, and every man and his dog sped off leaving me at the tail end. Not to worry, I wasn't there to win!
The first 11 minutes went really well; Averaging a pace around 08:00 to 08:15, fast for me, but felt really good for some reason. The start of the 12 minute was the beginning of hell, and a swift reminder of why cross country is so much more difficult than road running!
As I turned a corner I was faced with a mountain! Now I may be exaggerating on this bit, but this 'mountain' was huge! It took me two minutes to get up it, with a relatively short distance climb of 100 ft! I managed to get to the top without stopping, passing a few people on the way, but my pace was suffering.
As I got to the ridge on the top of the 'mountain', I was faced with a fast downhill section. As about 90 odd people had gone before me, this was a nightmare. A rocky, muddy, and slippery trail with normal running shoes was not ideal! But alas, I got to the bottom unscathed and continued to run.
It now all started to go wrong. After the downhill section, there was a flat section of about 100 - 200 yards, followed by a 90 degree turn through a turnstile. What I saw after this was horrific! Now I mentioned the 'moutain' early on in the report, but I can tell you now, what I was faced with made that mountain look like a mole hill! This hill was muddy, twice as long as the previous uphill section and involved an increase in height of approximately 200 ft! I tried; I really did, but I wasn't getting up it without walking. My pace slowed to 18 minute miles as I struggled to even walk up the hill.
My pace suffered for a while after this with a bit of stop starting as I tried to get feeling in my legs. By this point, I was quite far back in the field, but like I said before, I was never going to even attempt to win the race, for me the taking part and the experience was enough for my Wednesday afternoon!
2.75 miles into the race, I finally got feeling back into my legs and felt good again, but knowing I still had about 3.4/3.5 miles to go, I held back on the speed, and just aimed to complete the race.
The rest of the course was relatively flat, with a few ups and downs, but nothing like the first 2.5 miles! I maintained a pace of approximately 09:45 minute miles, and managed to push a bit towards the end and actually overtake someone!
I came 106th in the men's race, out of 108, but I was happy. I had done my first 10k cross country race (6.14 miles according to my garmin) in bang on 60 minutes! The crazy thing about it was the friendliness and encouragement towards the end of the race, from all those that had already finished. It was strangely surreal!
Anyways here the data:
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/29533177
Distance - 6.14 Miles
Time - 01:00:00
Mile 1 - 08:00
Mile 2 - 09:32
Mile 3 - 12:23
Mile 4 - 09:45
Mile 5 - 09:50
Mile 6 - 09:21
Last Little Bit - 01:16
Overall a great day. I'm happy with the time, and I have a gut feeling, on a dry road course, I could smash my target of 55 minutes for a 10k!
Thanks for reading my long winded race report and my latest blog update. I have the day off today! No work and no running! So, I'm off to relax for the day!
Have a good weekend!
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