Set of only a shade late but no-one else at the meeting point so jogged down to mansion house, tube to sloane square and walked to the tented village.
Got changed, gelled up and dumped my bag.
Tibialis Posterior was ok and I was trying hard not to think too much about that.
Formulated a vague race plan to see if I could hold sub 4 min kms. Found Martin and he introduced me to John who is true elite and deserved the red dot on his number. Turns out John has had the same injury and his custom orthotics worked a treat.
Mr tanoy was gobbing of and the red dots were beginning to head to the wonderland that is the fabled front pen. We made our move and I popped a gel keeping the water until right before the start. Conditions near perfect. Some stupid woman stopped us going right to the front but by then we were only a few feet from the front so just jumped the barrier.
I stayed in the pack but could see Martin striding out with the uber fast boys and chatting away with the chaps that looked like they might win it. I actually recognised many of them from the canal.
After a fair amount of the expected chit chat with the sponsors and the personalities we were off.
Gun time equals chip time, boy do those red dots help at the start! Never before have I got away with such a good start at this race. This is the highlight of the race, being at the front! Before I know it we clear km 1 in 3:55. Next one is spot on again going through the second in 7:50 something. Third is ok too in 11:50 something, but then there is some grass and the uneven surface makes me nervous. I ease off a bit, but not much. Go past km 4 at 16:11. Grrr! Chris goes past me here and looks fresh as a daisy gliding effortlessly along chirpily encouraging my good running. More Grrr! Thinking now of the last bit as a 1600 rep and don't look for my time at the 5th marker, but hear the tanoy say something about 19 mins which is the first lady in. The whole pack I am in surges to the finish and I make a semi sprint finish (the Lockett Rocket was not on display tonight!) going over in 23:09 - given injury I am pretty pleased with that, esp. the first 3 km. I just need another 7 at that pace for Harpenden in October and the ability to go up that hill at speed too. Just checked and last year I did 23:41 so a massive improvement on that time and average pace was 4:07 so getting closer to target pace.
Bumped into John at the finish, he was 8th out of 13,000 in 17mins something. Martin thrashed me but I was a few seconds faster than my old buddy Spencer Lane which really made the night complete.
Food as usual was great and some how the beer tastes better when cold and free!
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