Medal medal medal!

As Muttley would say.  You can't beat a medal and the 2014 Gainsborough & Morton 10k Road Race medal is a fine specimen.  A veritable Barry White of the medal world, it's so chunky.  Of course I wasn't doing it just for the medal although I must confess that the standard of the rewards is a big factor in choosing my races.  Let's face it, there has to be some incentive.  I know we 'run for fun' but it's bloomin' hard work and you might as well have something to make up for it as you gasp and wheeze your way over the Finish line.

Actually I feel a little guilty that I didn't divulge my true intentions for this race when I was writing about it last time.  I had put a time of 57:00 mins as my intended time for this 10k.  The reason being that I had put it down for my timed run as part of the  Jantastic programme.  This is a voluntary motivational running programme where each month you set yourself some targets e.g. how many runs a week and then you log them when you do them.  In February you also had to put down how long your longest run in each week was to be.  In March you had to decide on a distance and predict what time you could do it if you were running flat out.  You would be penalised for the amount of time you were under or over this predicted time.  The aim was for you to have a better knowledge of your current fitness and for you to be able to judge your pace more accurately. Nobody would know if you were telling the truth or not but you probably wouldn't even think of joining it if you weren't serious about it.  So why didn't I tell you?  Self doubt of course.  My usual failing.  I thought if I put it down in the blog and failed to reach it I would feel really bad.  As it was it was not a pleasant feeling to go into a race with an expectation, it puts a lot of pressure on.

So did you do it?  I hear you cry.  Well my friends I came in at 56:49 mins a mere 11 seconds off my prediction. Which was a personal best for me and made me feel ON TOP OF THE WORLD.  If I'd had the strength I'd have done a Mobot when I came in. As it was I came in like Usain Bolt (if he had had gender reassignment, had 3 children, piled on a few pounds, aged 30 years, changed his ethnicity  and not trained for about 5 years). I chose 57 mins because I had roughly this time last year in a race where a very nice chappie had run me in at the end and practically caused my lungs to heave themselves out of my throat.  So I thought this might be the kind of effort needed and I decided that I must be fitter now through the marathon training so I should be capable of that. When the race started I set my watch off and then resolved not to look at it again till the end.  I wanted to try and judge my pace by how I was feeling and there can be nothing more demoralising than finding the going tough only to look at your watch and realise you're not going as fast as you thought. It's all in the mind as you can see.  This is how the race went.  I started off steady and then I gradually got faster.  I remember thinking it felt manageable but I couldn't help but wonder whether I would be able to sustain it and whether I dared to push harder or whether that would cause me to struggle at the end. It's a great route and very flat so basically you just have to keep going. At 9k I decided to give it my best and as I approached what I thought was the end I saw the clock which already had a 57 on it.  'Well that's it, I've missed it',  thought I. Then I realised it wasn't the finish and there was still about 100m to go.  At this point I remembered that I had been towards the back and that the clock shows the time the race started which meant I still had all the extra time it had taken me to cross the start line.  And hence my final all out sprint to the finish line, arms pumping, legs pounding, hair flying.  It did occur to me that if I tripped and fell at this point I would really have hurt myself!

Pats on the back all round.

Courtesy of John Rainsforth