
The Preston 10M 2009

Last night I was cavorting at a medieval banquet in Coventry, where I awoke at 6.30, i.e. half past daft o'clock. After a 2 hour drive up the delightfully clear M6 to Preston, there was just sufficient time for the customary pre-race rituals before lining up with seconds to go before the gun, or whistle(?!) in this case.
Well done Preston Harriers on putting together a decent and safe event. It got a tick in every box except the one marked 'accurate time keeping'. How do I know that? Well, I pressed my start button well after the whistle blew, and pressed it as I crossed the 'imaginary' line. So one of three possibilities occur. Either a) my GPS is not a precision device linked into a myriad of computers monitoring the exact movements of the earth to generate an atomic measurement of time, or b) the 'imaginary' line was not where I quite imagined it to be, or finally c) somebody timekeeping had geriatric reflexes. Obviously I'm being facetious, but why is it that time recorders never have the same result as me?
All this carping on is because I beat my PB by a paltry 7 seconds, instead of the 9 as I have it, so call me a pedant. The results are here - 36th out of 365 in 1:02:16. I'm dissatisfied with the result but pleased with the performance. By the halfway point of this two lap course I was yearned for the heated seats of my car, but while being cheered on I managed to trick my mind in to believing that it would be all plain sailing from then on. Ha! Amy Green from Keighley charged past me like a bison and I was left pondering whether my race was over up until mile 7. The 3 preceding miles had been mentally tough, then I realised that I had barely been overtaken, and that everyone that had come past was within my reach. That was it - simple as - I just managed to convince myself that I had turned the tables on them by 'allowing' them to overtake and now I was going to reel every little one of them in - and I did. Being blunt, I couldn't have raced faster on the day and so got the result that I deserved, but am pleased to have salvaged some self-respect by mounting a strong come back right to the line.
Is the deficiency in my training that I don't do sufficient race paced miles? In other words, for a 10 miler should I be out training on the flat doing 5 miles in 30 minutes? Maybe a two mile warm up and the same to cool down? From now on I'm going to be doing more race specific speed work.
So what's new? The ECG results are in and they say I'm - normal. How insulting. Much to my good fortune the Cardiologist happened to be a runner. He explained how another running cardio chum of his does 10K's in 32 mins and has been doing some research on responses to interval training. Anyway, the outcome of this was that his subjects fell in to two groups - responders and non-responders. Now that I've become a Wednesday night regular at Carnegie let's see which category I come under. As for the pains, he believes it's some sort of spasm brought on by exertion, but wants me to take a treadmill test just to be on the safe side. Great - 30 minutes indoors hill training!
What else? Ah, there's the small matter of my spring marathon. Hmmmm, well as Paris had filled up by the time I managed to pull my credit card from its web encrusted stitched shut wallet, I plumed for Blackpool instead. Same date (April 11th) - both places have a tall iron tower that you run past, who'll even notice the difference?
Three races left this year. Thirsk 10 and Ribble 10K (both pre-entered) and maybe the Langdale 10K....





