The cross country turned out to be exactly, if not worse than I remembered from last year. There is something about XC that really does take it out of you. The course just seemed to be a mix between climbing hard hills and then trying your best to get your breath back on any flat or downhill, which there appeared to be very little of compared to the climbing, I appreciate this is odd...especially when you consider that we are doing laps! Anyway, the two laps and 8km took me about 32 mins so not exactly fast, but I was pretty tired. It was probably not an all out affair though as I thought that it would be best to hold a bit back for the bigger race. In the end, I came 113th out of about 300. Not great, but these XC races seem to have a knack of bringing out some really fast people.
Still, on Sunday we had the big race. I had entered the Henley Half Marathon under the impression that a run along the Thames was going to be a pretty fast affair and therefore I would be able to get a new PB. Especially considering my last one should be easy to beat as it was recorded back in early 2006. Still, having eventually looked at the profile for Henley and some of the results from last year, it quickly dawned on me that this was not a flat race. A quick check on Google Maps revealed a massive hill at mile 10...not really the best place to have one. Still, I thought that I would still like to have a go at the old PB, even considering the big hill...I had 1:26 to beat.
The race got underway and I soon found myself moving up through the pack of people. I finally got settled somewhere near the front pack and decided to just try and hold that pace. The new watch was giving me some valuable stats, so I knew how fast I was running and what my HR was. I had done a fair few 21/22k runs in the past few weeks so I know what I am able to sustain for the duration. Funny thing was, I was going pretty fast...finally going through 10k in a quicker time than I had recorded in a 10k race the week before where I came within 7s of my PB for 10k. Things were looking good, but at the back of my mind, I knew that I had "the hill" to deal with. We eventually reached it and I decided to take some smaller steps and increase the cadence. This seemed to work well and I was not losing too much time to the people around me. I hung in there for the mile or so of climbing, but I reckon that the hill put about 2/3mins on to my final time had the course been flat. Over the top and the steep downhill proved to be more of a pain than a relief as it was pretty steep so you cold not just let go and let the hill take you down. Anyway, getting back down to the flat was good as I now knew I only had about 3km to go. Time to put the head down and work on through the pain. The last km really did hurt, but it was worth it in the end. I came home in 1:22:36 and a reputable 16th out of some 1700 athletes, so a whole 4 mins quicker than the PB, and on a course which is a lot harder than Milton Keynes. All in all, a good day out really - especially considering the lung wrenching from the day before..
