Take Heart

After last Sunday's long run, the rest of the week's training was relatively light. Tuesday saw a return to intervals - 3 laps of just over a mile, with a half-mile recovery between - and the interval time was no real improvement over my first attempt, except that the later laps were closer to the first lap. Speed not really improving, but the ability to maintain it is. Thursday was a fairly fast straight 4 miles, at just better than 9 minute miles. Still a way to go. The Saturday run I pulled forward to Friday, and just ran an easy 3 miles, to leave me fresh for Sunday's race. When I say easy, my Heart Rate averaged 133 - I'm usually pulling somewhere in the 160s!
Sunday's race was the Action Heart 5, starting from Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, so plenty of medical backup in the event of a mishap! Again, plenty of professional-looking athletes, many of them seem to be wearing heart monitors, certainly some of the wrist watches wouldn't look out of place as Tuvok's tactical array!
Having made the mistake of starting at the front at Delamere, I lined up some distance back from the start line, only to find the space in front of me filled with even slower runners. The hooter goes, and off we set, with me alternating between running and walking, because it was so congested that I was in danger of running into somebody! We get clear of the hospital grounds, and I start passing people, generally getting more of a feeling of being in a race than I did at Delamere, where I only passed about a dozen people in the whole 6 miles. Unlike Delamere, however, it's much more of a road race - actually being run on the road, with cars in side roads having to stop to let us pass, and cars on the main roads keeping towards the middle to avoid running us down. I tend to keep on the pavement, and I'm looking around at every junction, something that other runners don't do. Am I the only one who doesn't totally trust drivers?
We reach the "1 mile" marker, and somebody behind me says "8 minutes - quite good", and I mentally agree. That will give me a respectable 40 minutes for the distance, although I'd like to do better. Perhaps I can pick the pace up later.
About half-way round, and we start down the hill along Himley Road, and I put my fell-running expertise to use, and start flying past people, using gravity to take me. Finally, we hit the 4 mile mark, and turn for home, and start up another hill. Somebody near me complains about it all being hills - I invite him to Ironbridge next month! I plan my big finish, when I will pull back another couple of places, to begin with about 200 yards to go, as we re-enter the hospital grounds. Somehow, the legs don't seem to want to know, and the guy in front of me actually starts to pull away (his big finish beats my big finish!), and I can hear the patter of tiny feet closing in from behind me. The fear of losing a place does what the carrot of gaining a place failed to do, and I manage to pull the last bit of performance out of my legs, and I at least hold my place to cross the line in ?th place. (No results yet - watch this space!). I know, however, that I finished in just over 40 minutes, because the pace car, with stop-watch on top, is parked near the finish, and I can see that it's already over 40.
Over the line, make sure that they've got my number, pick up my Large commemorative T-shirt, collect a drink, and sit and let the legs recover. Then, back to the car (fortunately, I've got on-site parking, rather than about half-a-mile away on the Servosteel car park), get changed, drink a bit more, eat a banana, then back to the race marquee and look around the Sweatshop stand, where they've got a rail of vests and t-shirts, most at reduced prices. I spot a nice red singlet reduced to a fiver, and I'm just about to put my hand in my pocket when I overhear somebody say something about a discount. Back to the car again, collect the discount voucher for a fiver off anything from Sweatshop that came with my race information, and I am now the proud possessor of a singlet that cost me nothing!
All in all, a pretty good day, a new t-shirt and free singlet (both in my racing colour of red), and a time that is about 150% of the winner's, compared with 168% at Delamere. Taking the Ironbridge winner as 1 hour 15, 150% is 1 hour 52, whereas 168% is 2 hours 7. The 7 weeks between Delamere and Dudley has reduced my Ironbridge time by 15 minutes, and I've got 4 weeks left to go - another 7.5 minutes would get me home in 1 hour 45. The dream is still alive, at least in my calculations!
Finally, back home, a bite to eat, and I'm off with Owain to get some upper-body strength training in on the Severn, while helping him with some paddling practice for Devizes-Westminster.