Quote and race report

Quote:

"Once you're beat mentally, you might as well not even go to the starting line." -Todd Williams

First I would like to thank my sponsors for supporting me through the Welsh Inter-Regional Championships.... errrm O yeah, I don't have any sponsors YET. My true support is my wife who looked after the house and Karla whilst I was away for the weekend in Cardiff; and puts up with all the training. I represented North Wales in the Welsh 10K Inter-Regional Championships at Cardiff. I'm not sure of the results yet but will update the blog when I know.

Personally the important result for me was a 10K (6.2 miles) personal best time of 33mins 22secs. I was aiming high at a sub 33 min time but I was pleased with the slower result for the following reasons:

- the hard training week I had (a tempo run and intervals back to back on Tues and Wed; then easy runs, swimming cycling etc...);

- the heat; and

- position in race compared to other good runners.

The whole weekend was great but now I'm tied after the travelling. A big thank you to Andrew Edwards from Deestriders Running Club for driving me all the way down and back.

My mile race splits were as follows: 5:17 5:18 5:24 5:22 5:21 5:29 1:12

The first 1/2 mile was quick, I got a bit carried away with the fast ellite runners (the ones who are sponsored) but luckily I noticed and slowed the pace. A team member, Jez Brown from Buckley runners, was next to me at the first mile. I told him that the pace was 5:17, which was too quick for him so he slowed down. At half way I caught up to Brendan Rothery (another North Wales team member). He looked unusually tied so I pressed on to catch the group of runners ahead. He said some words of encouragement which helped.

The rest of the race was spent fighting sore legs and playing mind games to keep up the pace; keeping an eye on the watch for pace, counting, trying to keep with the person in front of me. Then with one mile left I really felt bad. I actually thought I was going to faint. Very light headed and blurred vision. I did not want to faint because I only had a mile to go. I just kept running and then with 1/2 mile to go, just as I was thinking this is what it feels like to die, I saw the end, the end of the race, not my life. There was a lovely long straight finish so you could see the finish line, this kept me going to the end. Crossed the line knowing I'd gotten a PB but wondering why I hadn't run a sub 33 because it felt soooo hard.