Yesterday evening the weather was quite good for racing, warm but not too warm with a bit of drizzle in the air. I arrived in plenty of time and had a good warm-up. Felt fine before the race, and had in mind the lessons I’d learned a month ago at Tempsey Torture. I needed to not push too hard at the start so I had something left in the tank to push at the end.
The race began with a steep decent followed by a similar climb back up the other side of the arena. I was getting overtaken at this point but had in mind to run my own race. AS planned I was not competitive on the hills, letting those who wanted overtake and hoping I would catch them again alter when they tired. 10 mins into the race I had fallen into a small pack as we left the lakes behind and headed into the woodland in the north of the park.
I was following the leader of the pack for a long way but his pace began to drop off and I knew I needed to overtake. This was facilitated by another member of the pack moving to overtake and I followed. We left the group as a pair and moved further into the woods.
The new runner I was chasing kept up a good pace that I felt I could hold. Unfortunately as the terrain underfoot got worse I lost him in the forest (and never saw him for the rest of the race!). For the next five minutes I didn’t see another runner but felt strong and tried to put in some work as I moved through the uneven woodland.
I caught the next guy ahead of me as we were leaving the woods. A navigational error on his part enabled me to overtake and he never came back. This brought us to southernmost point of the course at the south end of the lake. One of the marshals kindly pointed out that I had a 30% gradient back up to the lake – although I stayed strong and did not walk.
Overtook a couple more on the final straight back to the finish, and managed not to walk on the final hill up to the end. I was a bit disappointed as I thought the course was longer than it was and still had some energy left at the finish.
Crossed the line 49:23 with 47th place. This is fine but I feel I could have gone harder. I took my own advice too much and held too much back. This is a lesson to be learned for the final race in the series.
JH 