Dead Runners society race report
Bury St. Edmunds 20 mile race - sunday 23rd february
1997.
In
France I did a lot of slow distance work to build up for the 1997
London Marathon. Next stage was
a 20 mile race so I returned to the Bury 20 mile race to see how fit I was for
London.
Morning all
Tony here in wet and
windy England.
Yesterday the
beautiful Shelley and I went east along the A14 into darkest
Suffolk so I could run the Bury 20
mile race. This was my "lets see how fit I am for London" race, my first serious race in 2
months.
Met up with eurodead
superstar Paul "PJ" Henney before the race, 1/2 mile easy as pre-race warm up. Met up with PJ on the start
line clad in his garish Puma
gear and we made our pre-race excuses :-)
Off we went and we
jogged along for the first mile, felt rather sluggish, there were over 1000 runners entered so it was a bit
crowded at first. 1 mile in
7.49, 2 miles in 14.22(6.33), we left the town and started our
tour of the countryside and started
to work our way through the field. 3 miles in 21.29(7.07), by now we were running along
undulating country lanes and
there wasn't a lot to stop the very strong crosswind :-( 4 miles
in 28.41(7.12) and 5 miles in
35.48 (7.07), a bit behind schedule but there was a long way to go. Felt slightly easier by now,
6 miles in 42.55(7.07),
gradually downhill to 9 miles. 7 miles in 49.52(6.57), 8 miles in 56.44(6.52) and 9 miles
1h03.40(6.56).
Now the crosswind
became a headwind for the next couple of miles and it was a bit unpleasant, I was feeling tired and it was
getting a bit harder to stay
with PJ. 10 miles in 1h11.03(7.23) and 11 miles in 1h18.20(7.17),
I knew some steep hills were waiting
for us around 14-15 miles so I wanted to hang on to 15 and then try and race it in if I could.
12 miles in 1h25.50(7.30), 13
miles in 1h33.15(7.25), the wind was tough around here. Downhill with a bit of wind behind to the first hill at
14 miles 1h39.59(6.44), PJ got a
few yards on me on the way up but I managed to get back. Didn't feel comfortable on the steep descents,
onto the 2nd hill and PJ zoomed
off, all his "HillsofDeath" runs must have helped round here.
Struggled up the hill although still
passed a couple of runners on the way up, 15 miles in 1h47.07(7.08). Rather tired by now but I
didn't give up and kept trying
to race people and passed a few more runners. 16 miles in
1h54.39(7.32), we went through a
village and got a bit of shelter from the wind and speeded up, 17 miles 2h01.20(6.41). Not far to
go now, I knew the road out of
the village lead down to the A14 junction and the road back
into Bury. The wind was pretty
unpleasant in for the last couple of miles, still passed a few but a couple of runners passed me as
well. 18 miles 2h08.30(7.10),
going under the A14 was like running through a wind tunnel
:-( 19 miles in 2h15.48(7.18) and
finally back into Bury, last mile wasn't much fun passed a few people walking in but I couldn't
speed up. Eventually turned left
into the sports centre and crossed the line in 2h23.05(7.17 last mile).
Rather tired on
finishing but Shelley was there waiting for me at the end
:-) PJ speeded up in from 15
rather than I slowed down, he ran 2h20.59 for a new 20 mile pb. A really good run by PJ, I told
him he beat me as I was wearing
the wrong socks :-) Not too bad a run in the rather unpleasant
conditions but I wanted to break
2h20, I ran 2h19.36 here in 1995. I need to do more speedwork before the London marathon, I've
run a lot of slow long run miles
with the "kiddies" as marathon training but I want to be running faster than that come April 13th.
ORN 1 slow lap of the
park this morning, not too bad as a "morning after"
run so I didn't completely trash my
legs yesterday.
bye
tony....
tony bell
ageing student and marathon runner cambridge university department of
chemistry amtb2@cam.ac.uk
Tony@shells.demon.co.uk
Cambridge University Hare and
Hounds Web Page
http://www.cam.ac.uk/CambUniv/Societies/cuhh/
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