Herts 10km, honour and the rocket and a new pb!

The pre-race meal plan had Kenny and I agreed that he would trail blaze the first third of the race to get some time in the bag and then as I (in theory stronger on the the hill) would take us up the hill then we'd be every man for himself.

On the start line I met Jon Jones, Simon Spears, all the running fource guys (Paul, Kenny, Dave) and it was a great buzz to be there on the start line with thousands of lesser runners behind us and to know so many on the elite.

Great race plan except from the off hundreds of idiots crashed past us and it was hard work to settle into a decent pace and I nudged Ken along in the 1st km to get us under 4mins to the 1st marker. Actually the marker was off and we'd already done a km back at 3:44! I dropped off to 3:55 then 3:57 and Ken had by this time a good 20 seconds on me. That was fine as I could see him and Dave had traded places with us a few times. By the hill I was feeling ok and tried to close the gap, but by the top Ken was still 20 seconds ahead.

On the way past Roundwood school I heard my wife and kids cheering and so the lifted me a bit and they pointed out what I already knew "Ken is just infront!". My son was apparently gutted that I was behind Ken - ah, but I knew from what Ken had told me that he did not like the Nicky line section and the switch back in Rothampstead so I tried to catch him on those sections - but alas could not.

At the 9km marker he was 17 seconds in front and I decided I could beat him by more than that over one km. Kicked hard and closed the gap. With 500m to go I had to quickly decide when to go past. I took a large group wide and eased off for the final push. I wanted to go past accelerating and hard. I saw the line. We turned for home and with 200m ahead I went for it. I caught a glimpse of Ken's face and held that image as the rocket inside was finally free to cream it to the line. Just piped him home in. Some kind of record last km, in 3:44 (it was 3:28 but only 930m) so over all very chuffed with the days work.

The sponsor was Sainsbury's St. Albans rather than Waitrose Harpenden so the sixteen year old sirens with silver platers of freshly chopped fruit were down graded to a fat bald bloke with a banana and a bottle of water.

Also the massage was good, but they had installed some kind of generator next to that side of the tent so the noise was such I could not talk to the guy doing my legs and I was getting the exhaust fumes straight into my face.

Anyway, nice massage and coffee and carrot cake with Paul rounded off a top race day!

Final scores on the doors:
Gun time: 41:07
Chip time: 41:05
Position: 63rd / 2265

Running Fource Meets Simon

Through a set of random happenings Running Fource welcomed a new top dog to the team today. Simon Speirs, he did St. Albans in 1:25 (according to the official results) and can fairly motor along doing 10kms in 38mins. He is an advocate of THAT RUNNING SHOP IN HARPENDEN's running club, but since the infamous incident with the Brooks shoes I try not to think about that place. Oddly, Kenny "lets do a slow one boys" had invited him along having met him the day before as he overheard me telling Kenny about the arrangements for the allotment club fete. I'd knocked out some hard labour at the plot on Sunday and so the hot dogs and cake and kiddy treats went down a treat at fete safe in the knowledge that by 7:15am on Sunday I'd be burning calories faster then I was eating them at the fete.

I wanted to go straight to the Herts 10km start and run the official race loop, but Kenny insisted we do a short 3 mile warm up out towards Luton and back over Cooters End Lane to get into Rothampstead park to get to the start. With 4 blokes (Dave, Kenny, Simon and no Paul - holidays for the next few weeks) and four Garmins we had about six plausable directions to get to the start at one point. Eventually a consensus was reached and we jogged to the start point and started discussing the route. Comment of the morning went to Dave "We're not racing this are we?". Er now. Steady, Yes says Simon 7min miles will do fine and we're off. It's 2 miles to the hill and the hill is about a mile long. Simon turned on the class and floated up the hill like it was not there. I was talking to Dave and suddenly he was gone too. He covered the 30m between Simon and I in next to no time and I had to dig deep just to keep the "slow" pace going. At the top Dave and Simon had stopped pulling away and were chatting away so I pushed and tried to slowly peg them back. Boy was it slow, but peg them back I did. With one mile to go there was a sharp right turn and I got a surprised smile and a nod from the front lads before they promptly stopped chatting and increased the pace so I could not keep up. Simon says that was Dave's move. I cut the corner at the buildings but even that was not enough. Distance was slightly over, time was 47 something. Felt like I was working hard though. Pleased I caught up with the buys. Kenny rocked a bit later. Simon then shot off for another 8 miles and we abandoned the orginal plan I had of some reps on the tree lined hill. We jogged home and Dave found a wallet, but stripped of cash. At least the poor guy will get his cards back!

I'm claiming that as a mid tempo as ave hrt was 154 on the 10km and 143 on the warm up. On the 10km section I was faster than my race last Thursday!

On checking the Garmin turns out our 3 mile warm up was 5.5 miles plus another mile and a bit home and that a good 12 miles done this morning.