2010 The Blog
13th February The (old) boys are back in town! : Hyde Park Relays
Great weekend meeting up with my old chums from Southampton University Cross Country Club at the
Imperial College Hyde Park Relays. Had a satisfactory run round the 5 and a bit Km loop, but that was largely secondary to having a good time.
I've now created a mini web page for the old boys to share a few photos that I took after running 24th January Portlet Duathlon - a win, but boy was it hard!
Wow, it was a hard race! I have not known such a competitive local duathlon in Guernsey. Luke Walton was a bit of a surprise as he has not been seen on the running circuit so I was unsure how fit he was. He dropped back just before halfway on the first run and I thought he might have been going a bit too fast and then he powers right back up and drove the group of me & Tim Coates along.
I eeked out a little lead coming out of transition and led the bike all the way to the turn after which Luke came past. We could see that Rich Stapley and Ian Scholes were closing up fast too. Lessons learned, & lesson to learn.
Apparently Rich checked that his aero helmet was on the right way round, and Ian
'fessed up to forgetting to take his running shoes off in T1 - oops! Mental
rehersal of what you are going to do in transition is a key to not making
mistakes. Coming back down the coast was helped with a bit of tailwind and Rich & Ian caught us at L’Eree and then it was a bit cat and mouse to the finish but with no let off on the pace.
T2 was pretty swift and we all came out together and Luke was setting the pace – again ! At that point I knew I was going to have to run really hard. I sensed a bit of a lull in the pace after about 1km and then started to press on and opened a gap. Conscious of how Luke came back at on the first run I really started pushing for home after the turn to stretch it out. I was running well and could hold it all the way home.
Ian came home in 3rd, Rich in 4th and new kid on the bloke Dave Crossland was
5th. Unofficially my run splits were about the same which is a quite something – especially as we ran pretty hard on the first run!
Time only about 20 secs slower than my course record.
17th January Coming back
Travelled to Cardiff with Steve Dawes and my daughter to
compete in the McCain X Challenge Series. A day of heavy rain had cleared
the last of the snow away and conditions underfoot were surprisingly good. Katie had a cracking run in the
u13 Girls coming 2nd in a desperately close sprint finish. The
senior men's field was quite small and I had decided my strategy was steady
start and see what happens. The immediate rushafter the gun had me at
the back of the main group which very rapidly became strung out. Steve
Vernon went on for a massive win and I just gradually picked runners off all
the way through, eventually finishing 28th just over a minute behind Steve
Dawes (24th). Satisfactory. Think the course really suited me.
Looking towards the finish in Cardiff.
9th January County XC Champs cancelled
Hampshire AA cancelled the cross country championships which caused a few problems, though it enabled me to get
some much needed additional training in and a decent run session showed a few signs of returning fitness.
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