Henlow 10 - New P.B

Last Wednesday was the Henlow 10 incorporating the RAF 10 Mile Championships. My 10 mile P.B was on this course anyway so a fair comparison. Some say its not a fast course and that a good course would be at least a minute quicker. The conditions seemed good and although it was cold stood at the start I soon warmed up. I went through the first mile in 5:55 although it does have a quite large up hill section so not to bad really. I felt strong and pushed on throughout and my worst mile was 6:00 through 7 - 8 which also has a long up hill drag. I finished in 57:14 giving an average of 5:43 per mile so some of the miles must have been near to 5:30. A new p.b taking 43 seconds of my previous time. Now I can't say that I could of gone quicker (or I would have) but I am confident to say I could have held the pace up to half marathon which would have given me a sub 1:15 half which is championship qualifying time for the London Marathon. Happy with that but I do feel there is more to come yet. A week Wednesday and I start the Lincolnshire cross country league, should be fun. Not much else happening at this time of year.

House sale fell through

My house buyer has pulled out 3 weeks into the sale............................ar$eholes!!!

Preparing for winter

Ok so its been a month since my last post, what's happening? The week after the Vitruvian triathlon I went to the Isle of Man for the End to End Enduro mountain bike race. I borrowed a bike again this year, a carbon Specialized Epic. I got my first ride on it the day before the race, not ideal but luckily it was a perfect fit and I only had to adjust the seat height. It was a great bike to ride and if I had the money I would be easily tempted with one. Anyway the next day was race day, quite a sight seeing 1368 mountain bikers on the start line!!! As the race started I made my way through the field, being an ex road racer really helps. By the time we were about 6 miles in I was in the leading group containing no more than 25 riders. I climbed well on the first monster climb of the day and moved into the top 20. Over the top of the first hill and you get chance to pick up speed on the first decent despite it being very rocky and loose stones. I was progressing nicely until I got to one of the new sections of the course at Ballacraine farm where I had a crash on wet tree roots. No issues really just a bit of a commando roll across the floor and after picking up the bike I was on my way again. Things were going great until the climb up the pipeline where out of the blue my legs just went bang. I hadn't really felt fatigue coming on and was surprised how quick I blew. With about 10 miles still to go this wasn't good! I pushed on as best I could but was loosing lots of places now. I slipped down the field and ended up crossing the line in 59th. Happy enough with that, not sure if it will feature in next years race plans though?

After the race I had a sore throat and the next day I had a full blown cold. This dragged on for about 10 days so training really went down hill during this time. I am now training quite hard for the Henlow 10 mile road race. I did a 9.6 mile run on Wednesday in 1 hour 5 seconds, then a 12.5 mile run today in 1 hour 19 mins 57 seconds. Things are on target for a sub hour run if the weather is right on race day but how much under the hour I don't know?

I have also been getting ready for winter, been spending lots of money!!! I've bought a new bike as I felt it would be best with all the commuting I am doing, I have also bought some winter boots to try and combat the winter weather, last but not least I have also got some cross country running shoes. I plan to do the lincolnshire league this year but was advised that spikes are not ideal for all the courses. I noticed that a lot of off road shoes have a tread more suited to the likes of woodland trails but think they would clog up with mud to easily so I went for the adidas ones with more of a rugged tread pattern. That's all for now I think, only other news is my house is sold subject to contract, this is a worrying time as many sales fall through at this stage so fingers crossed it all works out. If all goes through then I will be on the move again, and it will be this side of Christmas due to various circumstances. Time will tell and i'll update more as I know myself.