runography

After my 6 mile run on Friday I wasn’t looking forward to this mornings run as much as I had hoped, but when I looked out the window and saw the sun splitting the trees I was a lot happier.

Friday we had left work with the sun beating down, then started a 6 mile slog around undulating terrain in Chatelerhault Country Park. Unfortunately within 15 mins of leaving work there was a black cloud overhead and a months supply of rain arriving just in time for us to leave the house and head to the park.

We completed the 6 mile in just under an hour, average pace was below the 9:14-minute mile mark, I don’t have the exact data at the moment, but it was a good pace. I managed to take two things from this

1. running in the rain meant as Roddy said, I was “no longer a fair weather runner”
2. running on mixed terrain meant I had proven I shouldn’t be scared of hills

The post run meal on Friday night was excellent, we went to a small Italian restaurant in Hamilton, the food was excellent but unfortunately the name of the place escapes me at the moment. I’ve done a limited web search and can’t find it, so that’s that. Had a few beers and some wine and was a bit worse for wear on Saturday morning. A full week of no beer is easily ruined on a Friday night.

On Saturday I had gone to the football, Livingston v Hamilton Academicals and watched as the Accies recorded a 3-1 victory leaving them with 3 pts required to secure the league title at next weeks match. Needless to say, this resulted in a few beers, in fact, 4 pints and 4 bottles of budweiser later and I wasn’t so sure Sunday’s race would happen. I had an early night though, in bed for 10pm, so had plenty of rest before the big day.

On Sunday I had planned to get to registration around 10.20am, but was up in plenty of time to allow myself a Banana breakfast at 9am, 2 hours before the race. I was all ready by 9.10am but since I can register between 9.30am and 10.30am there is no rush. I have to pay £7 entry + £3 extra for registering on the day, but this is no problem. I decide to do a last minute check of where to register and notice that final registration for late entries is 10.00am Better get over there quick, it’s now 9.35am. Luckily it’s not far and the traffic was kind, so I was registered and ready to go by 9.55am, phew!

I have been given no: 907 (my first ever race number and my id for the day) and 3 safety pins to attach it to my shirt. After a few minutes trying to attach it without ripping the paper I opted to leave that to Ann. I didn’t want to rip my first number apart. Ann and the kids arrived at 10.35am, just in time for me to hand over my jumper and phone etc.. and go for a quick warmup. I had managed to persuade Ann to attach the number to me, since I was basically useless and she did so with great skill. My warmup consisted of a few light jogs for around 5 minutes in total.

The family went off to play in the park while I jogged over to the start line to get going, it was 10.54am and almost starting time. I turned on the Garmin only to find it taking an extra long time to get a signal. I figured it must be because of the proximity of other GPS devices and decided to go a bit away from the field to see if it would speed things up. This seemed to work, although not without having to switch the thing on/off. All set and I see people have started moving to the line. I am stuck about 1/2 way back as I don’t want to push nearer the front on my first race.

Not long now and I notice a few heads bobbing around when I realise that must be it, we’ve started, so I press Start on the watch and off we go. The first bit of the race is going well, I’ve gotten a rhythm and I’m trying to ignore other runners rhythms, I don’t want to get stuck at a pace that’s way over my pace, but I don’t want to do a training session either, so I aim for around 8:00-8:10-minute miles and stick to that. The watch is good for this and I can see my targeted pace for the first mile is around 8:02. I find it strange when I reach the mile marker and notice my watch is saying 0.9 miles gone. Oh well, one of them is out. I complete what my watch thinks is the first mile in 8:03, so a good pace, but if it’s wrong about the distance I could be going way to fast.

The 2nd mile and I complete it in 8:14, it’s not easy going and I can feel the effects of the beers the day before, but I have to put that aside as this is a race and so I shouldn’t be taking it easy. It could be that the effect is because I’ve upped the pace and not because of the beers, so I must stay on course.

The 3rd mile is going to be the harder as that’s got the hills, but I prepared for that on Friday with the run in Chatelerhault and I find them mildly more difficult than the flat sections. I overtake 3 or 4 people on the hill sections, which was rather pleasing, and post hills I’m upping the pace a little getting ready for the finish. I did the 3rd mile in 8:27 a little behind the pace, but ok considering the hills. The final section and I try a bit harder, but not really knowing when is a good time to go I probably leave it a bit late and put the final run in just a few hundred yards from the end. There were a couple of runners in front of me at the end which I think I may have gotten past if I’d tried a bit harder and gone a bit earlier. I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the end if I did though, and didn’t want to make an arse of myself in my first race. My final section was done at an average pace of 7:41-minute miles which was good considering it’s the last section. Well, in my opinion anyway.

My watch says I completed the course in 29:57, the official result is 30:01, so that’ll be the 4 seconds where I didn’t realise the field had started. I noticed there was one runner who had gone the wrong way when the 10 mile runners broke from the 4 mile runners, and she had accidentally done the 4 mile race. No prizes for being able to pick her out of the results. To make it easier, she finished ahead of me.

All in all, had a great day, beat the time I wanted by a long way and surprised myself for my first race. I’m enjoying this.

Just as long as I keep improving.

My first training session was January 14th 2008, my first race April 13th 2008, just under 3 months training and I finished 44th out of 80 starts, very pleased.

Tomorrow I’ll probably do a light session in the gym, I need the break.