This is a ramble! It's what I do. If you've any sense then you'll read a different post instead. It must be the teacher in me. Sorry! After a good run at Liversedge, I decided that I'd keep up the training and aim for a good time at Pocklington. Well, three sessions in a fortnight should do it. NOT! Pocklington attracts a number of clubs from around the York area who use it as one of their championship races. As usual I had a number of targets which I wanted to achieve. Considering the lack of training, they were probably a bit ambitious.
*Try to break the present V60 club record, Pocklington is fairly flat apart from the last couple of hills.
* Break 70 mins if possible by hitting a few miles in sub 7 mins
* Hopefully be in the top 5 of my category
* Break 68 mins if I possibly can
* Top 3 V60 position
* Age-graded of 80%
I know it's sad, but I go through all the targets I'd like to achieve in what I consider to be the order of difficulty. It helps me during the race to focus my effort into each mile.
The night before I made sure that everything was ready for the off. Willow would need her "60 min" walk first thing, 15 mins for breakfast and toilet and toilet and ..... The instructions of how to get there seemed very straight forward and I'd written them on a sheet of A4 in massive print. This would help me when I got nearer to my destination, eyesight isn't good that close to. A last minute look at the sheet that came with the number. "What!" Prizes for 5 year age groups BUT mine was V60-69! Bad news... Geoff Cumber from Halifax and Pete Johnson from Scarboro' would probably be there and they are amazing 65 year olds. Never mind. Time to go, everything packed and .... NO trainers! Trust me!
An easy journey in and I parked up at the station, next to the loo - where else. I found the rugby club and mingled with early arrivals. Didn't spot anyone I knew but was sure that there would be a few Harriers kicking about. The sun came out and it was time to decide what to wear. NO hat...NO coat this week. I'm sure that I'll warm up after a mile or so.
More visits to the loo and then follow the snake of people to the start which is 5 mins or so away from the club.
Mile one was fairly flat and a quick glance showed a 6:31 mile. PANTS! That's 15 seconds slower than Liversedge... Never mind, think of it as 29 secs up on a 70 min finish. So that's what I concentrated on throughout the race. Mile 2 in 6:49 - 3 was 6:38. After 3 miles I'd built up just over a minute on my target. I can't say that I felt comfortable, even though the terrain was fairly flat, it felt harder work than Liversedge did. Managed mile 6 in just over 40 mins, just 4 to go. Surely I can manage 4 miles in half an hour? 6:39 for 7, another 21 seconds in the bag. Hills approaching - 7:02 and then 7:11. Last mile and I can see the church in the town centre. Time to make an effort and use the people around to spur me on. Runners go by, why didn't they put more effort in earlier on? The big clock on the main street shows some time after 12:05, come on Frithy, give it some welly. After what seemed a lifetime, the last corner approaches and I can see the lead car with the clock on its roof positioned at the finish line. It shows 1:07:40 I WILL get under 68 mins... BRILLIANT!
At the side of the line is Geoff Cumber, V65 and last year's V60-69 winner. He's still breathing fairly rapidly. I hoped that he'd finished not too long ago. Any time near his would be fantastic.
A drink and a prize mug and back to the car. Changed into something warm and ate a Mars bar. Not the best post race thing but it tasted wonderful. I didn't stay for the prize-giving as it was over an hour later and I couldn't see me getting any prize with such a good field.
I was far more tired after this race than the 13.1 miles a fortnight earlier, time for a kip methinks. The results were supposed to be up soon after the race had finished. I kept looking on the tinternet but gave up after a few hours. An email from Dave Needham alerted me to the results. I was over the moon with my performance even though it had seemed really difficult at the time. I know I could have improved on sub 68 with better training. What did I get out of the run?
* 1st V60 but 2nd 60-69 because Geoff Cumber came in 46 seconds before me.
* £20 prize money - I'll be rich at this rate
* An 81% age-graded performance - my 2nd best of all time! That has really given me confidence for the rest of the year.
* 4th fastest V60 10 mile performance in the UK rankings - it won't last long but it does do my self-esteem a power of good
Loads of positives from this race, yet I know I could have done even better if I'd trained a little bit harder.
If you've managed to work your way through the whole of this post then you deserve a medal!
Editor
Can you spot me in this video? It took me a while too.
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