Harlow Running Club

XCOUNTRY: Harlow (Race 3 of 4) – 5th December

Race Length: 4.92 miles

Course Best: 39.09 in 2007

Target Time: 37 mins

Outcome: 42nd in 37.37

Nemesis Score: -3 (4 runners)

Splits: 6:43 8:08 8:01 7:37 (7:02 - 0.92 miles)

So on to our home cross country event.  Having now started to get back in to some sort of training regime, I was hoping to make some sort of improvement here, startng easy and then finishing strongly.

The course is essentally an out an back.  It starts off narrow so getting some good position is important, so although I wanted to hold back, I needed to go of a little hard in the first mile.  The course then crosses a brook before heading on a long uphiil drag to the Church Langley woods.  A few twists and turns and a quick climb up tetetubby hill ( a mound in a park ~10m tall that you "could" go around), sees you head back down hill to the brook.  You then have the flat run in to the finish.  The plan was to stick with the 2nd lady for as long as possible, finishing ahead of 2 clubmates and the lady I chickend out of out sprinting to the line at Ware.

I set off well and was even insight of a previous nemesis, but a split of 6:43 definately indicated I was going too fast. I was ahead of all my nemeses but on the long drag to woods, the 2nd lady went past.  I track her through the woods where she almost came a cropper in the ditch, now part of the course as the path through them had been rerouted in the week. I went up teletubby hill well, but as I went back in to the woods, the rise in HR caught up wth me and I was slowing.  My quarry was moving away.  I decided to limit the damage, take a breather on the way back down the hill and be fighting at the end.

On the downhill, JT, JB and P went passed me.  JT flew past but  was able to latch on to JP and P.  Also along side me was a 'Stortford runer who I know from the interweb.  As we approached the brook, P mentioned that there were 3 strotford runners massing as I went back past.  Now in the narrow secrion on the run in, we took a breather.  As the finish came in sight, we started to wind it up.  P went past as we got to the road, but I was very concous of the stortford runners.  Phil from the interweb was on my shoulder and 2 others were just behind him - and closing.  I shouted to P to get a move on and the sprint was on.  JB was just too far infront to catch but  wanted to overtake P.  I pulled out to try it (also now nicely forming a wall to stop the 3 stortford runners) but just could not do it.

I finished 42nd, behind 3 of the 4 runners I wanted to beat (the Ware lady came in ~20 secs behind), but was very pleased.  I finished ths race in a condition to be aware of what was going on around me and act upon it fir the team.  Had this been Ware or Stortford, I would have been a mess at the end.  The final results also showed that I was only 2 minutes behind an old nemesis this time - getting closer!