Wet in Warrington

I actually went to bed early on Saturday and slept. It's actually quite hard waking the body up after a decent night's sleep, and on the way to Warringotn I keep trying to talk myself out of relaxing. I'm SUPPOSED to be tense!

Somehow or other I don't quite manage it. This isn't a big target race, and I know I'm going to be doing at least 22K this morning, with an extra lap of the course waiting after the warm up and race. I persuade myself to run a brief warm-up, but it's already warm and muggy under the grey skies - and I'm not looking forward to the roundabouts and motorway bridges of the rather uninteresting course.

I get into the starting pen early - this is a big race with a limit of 1,000. Not paying attention, I don't notice the 300 or so runners who get on in front of me, and pay a 12 second penalty after the Klaxxon sounds for the start. Although it's a "chip" timed race, it's never a good idea to start too far back, and I end up dodging round big lines of slower runners for the first 800m. It's all wasted energy, and I'm annoyed with myself. It's easy to blame slower runners for lining up too far ahead, but I should have known better. I can see four or five blue and yellow quartered vests up ahead and already I've blown my chance for a pop at some of the slightly-quicker runners.

After the first K marker comes up, it feels easy, but the watch tells me I've set out just on sub-40 pace, which with the ducking and diving early on means I've pushed a bit to make up time. I settle down and get with a group, only to find they drop off my pace after a couple of minutes. I spot John Parrott, a good V50 from Stockport, just ahead. He should be running on sub-40 pace if previous encounters are anything to go by, so I take the long way round and catch his heels.

2 and 3 come quite slowly, although still just under 4-minute pace. There's a brief shower, and just before 4K I notice Helen, 100m ahead of me. She must have started near the tape! I'm still 30m behind her and two fast women as we do an out-and-back around a spare roundabout. Glenn comes up the far side of it as I go down, and as I gain on Helen I wonder if I can catch him too. I try to speed up, but every time my watch shows a 3:40 something, my heart sinks a bit. It is all in my mind, but my body listens to the warnings of doom and and my ambition resigns. It takes me until 5L to catch Helen. I turn around to shout at her to keep going and that she's on for sub-40. After that I don't look, but I hope she's caught on to me and got away from the other women she's racing. I also hope I'm going to be quick enough to keep ahead of her! Glenn seems to have got away again, and as we run along more pleasant country lanes, the kilometres tick by at a furious rate.

There's a little rise over the motorway, and even though I like uphill, and I gain on the guys I can see ahead, the watch is not playing the game and shows I'm at 4:15 pace. Time comes back on the descent, but not enough - then there's another short rise leading up to 9K and although I gain again on the runners ahead the watch takes another breather. I had 8 minutes 2 seconds to run the last 2K, now I have 3 minutes 55 exactly to run the last 1K for a sub-40 gun time.

That pesky V50, Mr Parrott, comes into view just as we reach 9K. I thought I'd passed him at 5 or 6! I pass him now though, and I'm on course for 39:59 as we run along a rough path with 700m to go. Next thing I know, I pass a 200m to go sign, and soon afterwards am sprinting towards a clock that says 39:40. It's still in view as it changes to 40xx, and I breathe silent curse
as I cross the line. It's a sub-40 10K, but I've run an extra 30m from my starting position and that took 12 seconds.

The three lads I was catching on the line all throw up in the funnel. I practice vomit-dodging and wonder which positions they should be in. The results lady doesn't seem to mind the confusion. I'm hardly wrecked and wonder what the clock would have said if I had been. Out of the funnel, Mike, Tom, Mark, Toddy, Matt and Glenn are already there. I see Helen walking up behind me. Tom looks fed up and says he started too fast. Everyone else looks relatively pleased. Helen is told she's got a County Medal.

I've got my finisher's towel and get four cups of water and a gel down. It's pissing down. Helen is brilliantly organised and suggests we set off straight away to get an extra lap done. She hands me a dry top, and within 20 minutes we're off again. It's great to have such good company on what would otherwise be purgatory after a hard race, and the time and the miles fly by. I'm supposed to be able to navigate by the GPS map I've got on my Garmin, but it's hard to see where it goes and we go off-course a couple of times on the confusing roundabout system. It doesn't matter at all. I remind myself that when I get tired at Beddgelert, or near Mynydd Mawr, or even in Llanberis, that I owe it to people like Helen to forget the temporary pain and keep going - after all, the marathon itself should be something that motivates by itself- the training sometimes needs people of her good nature and enthusiasm to happen in the first place.

I'd have like to stay and see the presentation to her, but Paula had been waiting about long enough, and a pub lunch was calling.

Later, I found that the chip time was 39:52, just 1s off my PB for 10K. I'm not too bothered about not wrecking myself for a new PB; there are plenty of other fish to fry this week, but still, it was close! I wonder what plan I'll have for Sutton next month? I've got a challenge going with Andrew Terrill, so if it's a good day to race, I might just have to put the extra in!