I went into this race wanting a PB, but you can't always have things your way and run every race like a time trial. These are races and the most important thing is to race those around you and score points for the team.
Who to race though? As ever, team mate Bev went galloping off chasing the Winchester A and B runners, Karen and Michaela - no hope of me keeping up with that little battle. That left me once more in the middle chasing Liz from Portsmouth and Audra from Winchester. Trouble was, neither Liz or Audra were in my points race, Audra being a guest runner and Liz over-50.
The first lap saw us spot on PB pace, for me at any rate. The second and third laps saw me hovering on Liz's shoulder: it was only afterwards that I realised we had slowed down a few seconds - I'm not good at taking on board the times relayed to us by the timekeeper. Despite the slowing it wasn't easy to get past Liz - I suspect her race craft was such that she was surging every time I tried to pass. The result was that I wasn't able to get past until we were taking the bell for the last lap.
Now in the clear I was able to pick up the pace and try to catch Audra. It was too late though and by the line she was still a second ahead and me 5 seconds off my PB.
My immediate reaction on crossing the line was that I hadn't run particularly hard, having had a fairly gentle 2nd and 3rd laps. I should be pleased with a 5:31.7 and its 79% age grading, but I felt that I should have had the confidence to push past Liz earlier. Not too bad though.
As I welcomed the other runners in, along came Ceal who promptly burst into tears, such was her relief to have finished the race in a good time and in one piece, having been worrying beforehand about the state of her hamstrings ahead of the vet championships. It's a high emotion sport this running lark!
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