Up until Thursday this week, I would have said I was in good condition to finally do it and take another little rung up that ladder. I had begun to taper down from Monday, doing just 8.5 miles at 6:50s, much less than my usual 10-12 at a faster rate.
I followed this up with a reduced speed session on Tuesday of 6 x 3 minutes effort / 1 minute jog recovery. I wasn't particularly concerned with my pace too much so long as I was under my intended race pace. I was content with my average pace of 5:08s for the efforts considering the undulations of the loop I was doing the session on and the strong winds on sections of it.
On Wednesday I had an easy 7.5 mile run at 6:30s. At this stage I was feeling confident ahead of the weekend, with just one reduced tempo session planned for the Thursday, before a day off on Friday and an easy run set for Saturday ahead of the race. I had done all the hard work and was easing down and within sight of the race and feeling ready. The forecast wasn't great, but there is nothing you can do about that.
Then at Thursday, out of nowhere and for no obvious reason, my back tightened up halfway through the working day. To complicate things further, I felt something click in my knee as I tried to pull myself up onto a scaffold without straining my back further! I cancelled my tempo session and tried an easy run, but had to give up after 3 miles as I was worried about doing more damage.
I managed to get a massage booked in for the Friday after work, and Sue Samme worked miracles on me once again and loosened he back right up. The problem was once again with my glutes and periformas, so it is something that I am becoming increasingly aware of needing to strengthen as it is about the fourth time I have had this problem in the last couple of years. I have a feeling it is an occupational hazard injury due to being on the trowel all day, but I'm sure there must be things I can do to prevent it, so I will have to get researching!
As well as having Friday off, I had to take Saturday completely off to, rather than risk inflaming my back again, or my knee further, as I was still feeling pain there too. I was feeling a bit fed up and sorry for myself and was pretty 50/50 whether I would even race, deciding to leave the final shout until after my warm up on the day.
I got through my warm up unscathed and felt just a little bit stiff - probably more from the couple of unplanned days off more than anything else, and the pain in my knee wasn't causing me any problems when running.
So deciding to race, I then made my mind up to stick with the original plan of trying to hold 5:15 pace for as long as possible, with the aim of getting time in the bank in the easier first half of the course.
The first mile was pretty rapid at about 5:05, as I tried to make sure I managed to get into a pack. Thankfully, the big group then broke up a little, into two separate groups shortly after. I found myself in a four man pack with Salford's Grant Johnson, Mark Offord and Rob Affleck.
The conditions weren't great, and as such I think being part of this little group was definitely beneficial, as we all took it in turns to head the group and push the pace. At around 4 miles, the group dropped to three as Rob Affleck dropped back a bit and we kept the pace nice and even, ticking along at a decent rate. We went through 10k in 32:30, which was a tiny bit quicker than I had expected, but I was feeling strong and working with the other two lads was helping as we seemed to be ticking the miles off fairly quickly.
We continued to share the load up to 8 miles, and we went through that mark at 5:16 pace, meaning that at that stage we were on about 69:20 pace. Shortly after that, Grant pushed on strongly and I wasn't able to go with him - and to be honest my own pace dropped as I suffered a bit between miles 9 and 11 to over 5:30s. Unfortunately this meant my average pace dropped off from the 5:20s needed to get below the 70 minute barrier. I struggled to get back on pace and ended up running home the final mile fairly conservatively, content in the knowledge that I had given it everything and that the conditions and dramas of the few days previously hadn't helped.
I have to be happy with the performance considering where I was at in the days leading up to the race, and I am fairly confident that I am not too far off from that elusive sub 70 now. Ending up in the prizes with a 9th place finish was a nice ending too, as I finished in 70:39.
Rob Affleck managed to finish in 14th place for first vet 45 and Garry Barnett also had a great run in 1:24 as we all enjoyed our day out and pub lunch afterwards🍺
Hopefully I will recover well through the coming week now, ahead of next weekend's Northern Road Relays.
Total mileage for the week: 48
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:37
Total mileage so far this month (March): 174
Total mileage for 2017: 730
Average miles per day 2017: 9.36
