Dead Runners society race report
Good Morning
Yesterday Shelley and I went north into
darkest Norfolk so I could run the half-marathon in the Wissey road races in
Stoke Ferry. We arrived just as the marathon was about to start, the
half-marathon was to start 1 hour later. Got my number and my racing gear on and
then did a easy mile to warm up, felt a bit sluggish. Off to the start line,
there were about 170 entries.
1 minutes silence for Princess Diana
:-(
:-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(
They let a wheelchair competitor go off
first and we all went off through the vilage. I was going for about 85 minutes
today, this was a fitness test for the Berlin marathon on 28 september. Ran
along in a big pack to 1 mile (6.32), it was a windy day and most of the course
was on undulating country lanes so staying in a pack would be important. By 1.5
miles the course started to get a little bit undulating and the pack started to
break up, by
2 miles (13.11, 6.39) there were now 4 of us. 3 miles in 19.53
(6.42), we passed the wheelchair on the way up a hill but he came past on the
way down. At 4 miles (26.19, 6.26) my pack started to fragment so I pushed on a
bit harder to stay in contact, starting to feel tired by now. 5 miles (32.51,
6.32) going quite well but I knew there was a big hill to come and I was trying
to stay with the other 2 runners in my pack with the minimal
effort. 6 miles
(39.26, 6.35) and the *hill* started, a long gradual climb up a narrow country
lane, now it was starting to hurt and about 2/3 the way to the top I got dropped
by the 2 runners in my pack and they started to pull away, oh no :-( 7 miles
(46.08, 6.42) at the top of the hill and I was all by myself and hurting, I
could hear some more runners coming and when they caught me I pushed on harder
and ran with this new pack. 8 miles
(53.02, 6.54), I'd had a bad mile, got
going reasonably well with the new pack and ran along with them through 9 miles
(59.42, 6.41) and 10 miles (1h06.16, 6.34). Very tired by now, just after 10
miles we turned straight into the wind, ouch! it was getting extremely hard by
now to hang on but I knew that it would get a lot harder by myself. I told
myself to run it a mile at a time, 11 miles (1h13.13, 6.57) and I was still
hanging on, I could hear the finish line public address already 2 miles out,
shows how bad the wind was :-( Over the next mile my pack started to break up
and just after 12 miles (1h20.10, 6.57) I had been dropped and I 1.1 miles
straight into the wind back into Stoke Ferry. It felt like I was running through
treacle, I could see the wheelchair ahead but he pulled away downhill in the
village, 2 runners came past me as if I was standing still about about 12.75
miles, finally into the road where we started, 13 miles (1h27.42, 7.32), turned
the corner into the finish straight as I got mentioned over the PA and jogged
over the line in 1h28.28. There was "the beautiful Shelley" waiting for me at
the end which was wonderful but I was not pleased with my race. Not so much for
the time as everyone was slow with that wind but with the way I gradually fell
apart over the last 3 miles.
Shelley took us home, noticed a lot of flags
flying at half-mast on the way back. We went to the swimming pool in the
afternoon so Shelley could do some water running, I splashed around for 20
minutes or so which was quite relaxing but I was far too tired to do much real
swimming so I got out of the water and cheered her on as she "ran" up and down
the pool.
27 days to Berlin, hope we get a calm day
then.
bye
Tony Bell
ageing chemistry student and marathon
runner
Milton, Cambridgeshire,
England
Tony@shells.demon.co.uk
amtb2@cus.cam.ac.uk
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