First the headline: We beat Winchester and have made the southern vet finals in Ashford. Hooray for Havant!
I found myself running as A string runner tonight, with Gina, whom I've never beaten, as B string. I started confidently, perhaps too confidently, leading Lucy Elliott, British international, round the first bend - out the corner of my eye I thought she was Jan, also from Winchester, with whom I've had some good tussles. I was sensible enough to let Lucy run off into the distance as I established my own pace. This left me leading the remainder of the pack round the track for the next 7 or 8 laps. It was quite tough into the wind down the back straight - a good effort needed in the F3-4. Everyone was careful to shelter behind me - the other Winchester runner Sue thanked me for that afterwards - cheers! ;-)
I realised I was outside 20 minute pace at this point. In a really nice gesture, Gina then took on the pace setting, deliberately to try to get me under 20. Gina led for a few laps but then the other 2 Winchester women started to pull away from us and with 600m to go I started to wind it up and pulled away from Gina.
I finished 4th on the track behind the 3 Winchester women, but was only 10s behind 2nd place Jan so I'm quite pleased with that. I was 2nd A-string, finishing ahead of Gina (for the first time!) who was 2nd B-string.
Poor Ceal was running as A-string for Portsmouth - there wasn't a W60 race, but due to absences she wasn't even W50! She got a 93.5% age grading for her performance though, which after an earlier 200m is pretty good going - no doubt a UK leading performance!
A mention too for Marilyn who scored well in the W50 class behind Jan and Jane. She had just done the 800m but even so managed to top 80% age grading. We vets like to keep tabs on our age gradings - it's something to hang on to as we get slower. Here's a link to an age grading calculator.
For my part I guess I can tell everyone I finished 2nd to Lucy Elliott after leading her in the first part of the race?
There's a tinge of disappointment failing to get under 20 minutes, finishing in 20:05.4, but the wind was a factor, as presumably were the 2 races the previous week. It was still a big PB though, so I need to learn to be satisfied with my performances!
Splits:
93s 130bpm
99s 148bpm
98s 151bpm
96s 153bpm
97s 155bpm
97s 157bpm
97s 158bpm
96s 158bpm
96s 158bpm
97s 158bpm
97s 156bpm
141s 156bpm =94s/lap (focussed, so missed the final 200m split)
20:05.4 153bpm ave 78.2% age grading.
Interesting how once again my HR dropped at the end despite an increase in pace. I felt absolutely wrecked on crossing the line - major effort.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment