Wedgnock Summer Series - Race 3 - 16 July 2009...

Distance: 10k (6.2 miles)

In a time of...
hh:mm:ss
00:36:46

Finishing Position: 2
Number of finishers: 96
Putting me in the top: 2.08%

I was actually very nervous for this one – I knew Phil Gould (a clubmate who's quicker than me) wasn't going to be racing, and also that another fast club member Mike Johnson (who won the first race in the series) was unlikely to run… this made me wonder whether I stood a chance of achieving my first ever race win. The doubt in my mind was series leader Ian Mansell, who had been running strongly in his races since the second race of the summer series – placing highly in the local 'Stratford summer six' event, and winning a half marathon.

As the race started, Ian went haring off at a great pace – I felt it was just too fast and decided I would sit back with a few other runners with the expectation that he'd pay for his spritely start in the latter stages. I kept in my mind that doing the course this way round (the series uses the same course, but in alternating directions for each race) we would soon reach a kissing gate or two, and it was essential that I wasn't held up behind other runners. As we hit the first gate I timed it perfectly – I got to the gate just as the first placed runner had gone through, no hold up at all.

The race organiser had warned us about cows in a field and upon reaching said field, I started following the race leader along a grass path… "LEFT!!!" I heard a voice shout from behind… the leader was going the wrong way, and I was following him! Luckily the whole scenario only cost me about 10-20m, though it'd cost 1st place maybe 30m or 40m. I was now leading a group of about 4 of us as we headed towards a small bridge made from a couple of railway sleepers which bridged a gap over a stream – this bridge had a cow lay down on it, with numerous other cows resting around it, all of them blocking the only route through – I started clapping, shouting, and waving at these cows to encourage them to move… and they eventually did, though it certainly interrupted our stride.

Once past the cows, previous race leader Ian Mansell put in a bit of a burst to regain his lead (and a bit of a gap to boot), I focused on preventing the gap from getting any bigger and had a definite race plan from the off that I would allow him to push on alone if I felt the pace was too fast. I know I'm usually a strong finisher and planned to push on with about 3km to go.

As the race wore on I started to close the gap again, with the race leader often looking back to monitor his gap and occasionally injecting a little burst of pace – We hit the roads and almost went the wrong way again, the race leader missing another turning, only by 5-10m, but enough to reduce his lead to just a few paces. He cursed at himself for going wrong again and kicked to regain his lead. This happened with about 3.5km to go.

With 3km to go I was ready to start reeling him back in, and though my legs were tiring a little, I knew I had more to give. My concern came when the course started to climb – I didn't want to pick up the pace whilst climbing and I often feel that pushing hard uphill gains fewer rewards for the effort exerted than pushing hard downhill – so I maintained a consistent pace up the hill, and upon reaching the summit I started to pick up the pace. There was about 2.5km to go at this point, and the race leader was regularly checking over his shoulder to see what the gap between us was looking like – and I was slowly but surely closing in, each injection of pace I was able to match, and add a little more to.

With 1km to go the gap was maybe 30m, and we started the long and reasonably steep downhill that would put us about 400m from the finish once we reached the bottom. Though the gap was closing it was closing more and more slowly – whilst I wanted to attack hard down the hill, it was perhaps a little too steep to attack whole heartedly. I kicked hard with a quarter of a mile to go but wasn't able to close the gap enough, Ian finished 5seconds ahead of me.

I have to put my hands up and admit I ballsed things up tactically – I planned to push on with 3km to go, but because of the hill at this point I didn't… equally, the second occaision where the race leader almost took the wrong route and lost his leading margin as a result, I shouldn't have let him open up such a gap again. Had the race been 11km I think I'd have taken top spot – but I just didn't plan my attack well enough.