Every year Belper Harriers volunteer to host one of the local "Booths Decorators League" summer races and for the last few years it's been down at Denby. It's actually a great course as it mixes flat / climbs, road / offroad in it's 5 ish miles.
When you've done a race for the last few years, there's always a tendency to compare times to previous years - well, a slight course change to last year stopped me doing that (thank god) but I still like to compare average pace to previous years.
This year, I'd been out with Karl and Marcus last Sunday sneaking in 22 miles and 3,400ft in prep for Buttermere Horseshoe next weekend (I'd not run for over an hour for absolutely months so needed to see if my legs still worked !). Needless to say, my legs weren't fresh for this race then, but they didn't feel as bad as I feared, so Chris and me headed down on our bikes on what was a perfect summer evening. A quick leg stretch warm up and things seemed to be functioning ok!
Everything seemed ok along the first flat section - running comfortably. We then turned the corner and headed up Street Lane. I could still see Trev Wilson just in front and - with Andy Parkin taking me and him - I thought it was time to close in on Trev too.
This is where it all went wrong !
I didn't realise it but I was maxing out already up the climb so to overtake pushed me way way WAY into the red. So much so that about 3 or 4 people overtook me on the next 1/4 mile. I think my legs must have been more tired than I realised after Sunday's efforts which is why I felt emptier than I thought I should have been.
On leaving the Denby pit tips area, I felt the runner behind me clip my heels - whooooa, hold on - you don't need to run that flipping close to me - "overtake me if you're that close" I thought ! Anyway, it was only Chris - lurking on my shoulder and trying to take me out of action !!! He claims not - I'm not convinced ! Anyway, this is where I started to get my breathing under control again so slowly pulled away from both Trev and Chris on the down / flat section to the finish.
Well done Chris for being so close! Not my best performance on the course but I still enjoyed running with 30 odd other Harriers on our home good on such a great evening.
41st out of 316
2013 pace : 6:05min / mile
2014 pace : 6:11min / mile
2015 pace : 6:17min / mile
Last years blog write up here
Results here
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