County Champs Track 10k

    I suppose this is why people start blogging, an hour or two to spare and you want to take your mind off things. It's almost 8:30 now and my race is at 13:00 everything is prepared... just right and for some reason this feels different, better than usual.

    Kit ready: Shorts, club vest, favourite running underwear and socks, running watch - don't forget sunglasses it may turn out nice. 
    
    Bag sorted: Change of kit, towel, (no changing facilities due to Covid), pins, water, Vaseline, heat rub, indigestion tablets as the advert says, "you never know when heartburn will strike". Ibuprofen, helps get rid of any tweaks. Spare trainers? Go on then just in case. More water. Phone.

    Pre race prep: Directions (yeah I don't trust Satnav), hydrated, been to the toilet...better stick a toilet roll in my bag - venue toilets aren't always well stocked. Race instructions checked. Car fuelled. Todays opponents form checked, 2 a similar standard to me should bring out the best in all of us. Dinner waiting on the stove and victory or commiseration drinks chilling.
And something new as suggested by another runner, 'don't eat junk food in the week before a race'. Some of these are obvious, alcohol, sweets, cakes but I've also excluded bread and cheese and whether it's all in the mind or not, I feel really well. Music selected for the journey.

    I haven't been running quickly in training but as seen with my 5 mile time 2 weeks ago once the competition starts everything clicks. And I train a lot on the track so I'm going to say this will give me an advantage running to potential whereas those who don't do track work underachieve.

    Still got an hour before I set out, I'll go and cut the white edges off my beard and colour the rest in with a felt tip pen.

Post Race Review

    Four turned up for the Lincolnshire and Humberside 10k track County Championship, four people for 2 titles. I just can't understand this lackadaisical approach to a race that carries a title, a track 10k (which are rare), and one of the few opportunities to get ranked at this type of race but it has been ever so since I started running them in 2014. I was the only entrant from Lincolnshire so the title was mine as long as I finished the race, which I did making this my third title in four attempts in the last 8 years. There it is; a 55 year old man 7 kilos over weight (70kg is the top weight I'm supposed to be for my height), the senior county champion. 
    Of the other runners I'd checked out their stats for this year on The Power of 10 website, one had run 37 minutes so he was way ahead of the rest of us the others had slightly better performances than I had but after my long lay off I was still improving and also 25 laps is a long way to keep your concentration and I have a lot more experience of this than most. As it turned out one of the pre entered competitors didn't turn up but another slightly slower runner had entered on the day so from the start 2 runners went ahead I slipped into third with the final runner behind where he stayed the whole race but came away with a bronze medal. The guys at the front pulled away from me fairly quickly until they were over 100 metres ahead by the 3k point but it wasn't long before one of them broke away and second place was no longer opening up a gap and then slowly the space between us began to close. I hit halfway in 19.52 and was in full flow and feeling quite good, by 6k I had caught second place so this ensued in a faster kilometre as he tried to hang on and I tried to shake him which I eventually did. The winner ran 38.40 way down on what he can run, I was second in 39.40 with a 4 second negative split* and third was 20 seconds behind. I don't think I could've run any faster and the equal splits indicated this, I was happy with that.

* Negative splits = running successive splits/laps faster. 

Taper to Worksop

Just picked up on a few comments about the Worksop half marathon on Facebook and it's a hilly one, didn't expect that. So I've re-estimated my finish time to 78 minutes, a shade under 6 minute mile pace.
I've decided to do a week long taper to the race (6 days with the half being on the 7th).

Monday day 6 in the countdown: I would usually do a hill session today but have replaced it with a steady 6 miler, this was necessary anyway after yesterday's session where I pushed out an extra 2 miles in the wind whilst I was dehydrated. Must admit to feelings of guilt by reducing my scheduled effort but a good run at the end of the week and it will be forgotten.

Tuesday day 5 in the countdown: I appreciate I should do less mileage and increase the quality on the approach to a race, so I reduced the number of intervals from 6 to 4, sadly as there was a gale blowing the quality suffered too but at least I'm putting the effort in.
As an aside I noted that there are in excess of 1700 people entered for Sunday's race, so I'll need to get close to the front at the start.

Wednesday: Steady 5 tonight not too much different from my usual run except on the road rather than in sand and later than usual (external factors). And as usual on the run up to a race I start getting ailments! I've suffered on and off all day with a sore throat (but this is why I'm blogging, so when it happens to other people you'll know it's normal and you just keep going. If it doesn't happen you're lucky). Anyway back to tonight's run and eventually there was the first signs of a little bit of bounce in my legs, not race pace just a steady run but maybe just a little faster than my usual steady pace.

Thursday: 3 days to go. Contrary to what I thought was happening yesterday, I've developed a cold today. Perfect. OK, 2 days off training and plenty of vitamin C (I've never noticed it helping to get rid of a cold but in the absence of any other cures I'll do what I can). That leaves Saturday as a very short run just to test myself before the race. At least I can bin the guilt trip over not training fully, now let me try and get my mind together; loads of pre race rest and looking back in history the last time this happened I achieved a PB for 10 miles (51.50).

Friday: The cold is clearing up at an anticipated rate so I should be able to make Sunday's race although I may not be able to give it 100%. Hopefully a 'fitness test ' tomorrow should give me the go ahead.

Saturday: Late fitness test, 5 miles at cruising speed; it went well, full of energy and at a reasonable pace without pushing myself. Well everything prepped as well as can be expected, so only need to pack my bag, get the satnav so I can find somewhere to park and keep drinking the orange juice!

Race day: So I made it and in as good shape as I could have hoped for, arrived in Worksop with an hour to spare and picked up my number, warm up go to the toilet, talk to old friends, team mates and random strangers. Bit of a nuisance here but the organisers don't let you jump in at the front of the line up so I wrapped up my warm up with 2 minutes to go and then I had to squeeze through the hoards to get to the front of the field which had about 2 dozen people confined in an area for three times as many. It is the 33rd running of this event so maybe they'd found it caused trouble to let people in at the front or maybe it was to test your resolve to see whether you deserved to be at the front, who knows? Anyway I made my way to the third row back ignoring the looks of disgust from the people who'd been standing there for 10 minutes or more.
On a flat course it's easy to measure the amount of effort required to maintain a steady pace; as you progress you gradually use a bit more until you're at 100% desperately wishing for the finish line to appear. On this course it was difficult to assess as it was 'undulating'.
The race got underway and by 5 miles things had gone quite well, I'd left all my adversary's behind and was a few seconds outside my target 6 min/mile pace. I was feeling dry and took advantage of both of the early water stations and even at half way, I was thinking, 'a good steady push from hereon in and I'll achieve my goal.' Story's of victory against the odds are fine but not as interesting as crashing defeats for no real reason and so this is where the blog picks up.
It started with the chap I had been running with pulling away and as I turned a corner in Clumber Park and looked back there was an ominous group gathering about fifteen seconds behind me. There was nothing to worry about I was still running strongly and so I was for 2 or 3 more miles but as the 10 mile point was passed it all went wrong, as first one then another runner came past and then they were coming past in twos and threes. Finally as we entered the last mile my team mates came past, it was crushing. I was desperately trying to hold body and soul together so I didn't collapse somewhere on the streets of Worksop and just about achieved that finishing (unofficially) in 82.12

So did I learn anything from this?
Yes; you can run with a cold but adjust your target time down and don't go chasing PBs!

As I started driving home I had to stop every time I tried to use the clutch as it caused my calf to cramp up (3 times), before I got used to some half-assed gear changes which probably weren't very good for the gear box but allowed me to continue on my way. When I got home I felt so poorly I treated myself to a bath and lying there realised if I'd had a good race I'd still be in Worksop in sweaty gear waiting for a minor prize, so maybe I had achieved the best result after all.