Radcliffe Trail Race Report (Read 399 times)

Hi guys, thought I would share my latest race report with you all. Was 12.5 miles of mud and sh** and used it as a substitute for my Sunday run. I was feeling good going into this race, though perhaps a little tired seeing as though I had a tough race the week before. I had my garmin in with the plan of sticking to 7:30 pace which seemed fine given the conditions. What with the race euphoria I went off like a dick as usual and did 10k in 42 minutes. Way too fast and from here I suffered. It was a difficult time for me as from mile 7 this is where the hills started to come, there were about 4 of them in total and were a right slog as they were very muddy. I was tiring very much so, but managed to hold my position.In fact apart from at the start I only let one person pass me in the whole race, so was happy with that. By mile 9 I was struggling and my pace started to suffer, but I knew that I had to hang on to a group of runners I could see in the distance. Eventually the last climb came (out of a valley) which was a slog, but I managed to get up somehow quite strong. Knowing that the finish was 1.5 miles away kind of gave me sone inner strength and I was happy with a sub 7 penultimate mile, overtaking a guy along the canal. As we came into the final straight, it gave onto a running track where we had 400m to go to the finish. There was a lady who I had bee hunting down for quite some time and she was in my sight! With little breath and heavy legs I pushed as hard as I could and gave it one last shot. I imagined being at one of my track sessions where I do 400m intervals. With 200m to go I was on her shoulder and she glanced at me as if to say, "Where the hell did you come from?" I overtook her which made me feel great and never looked back, got over the line and collapsed!! I placed 42/220 in a very tough field so very happy. Here is an image just before I overtook her at the end:

Great effort Eddy, looks like a tough old race - looks like the training is going really well for London.

It was atough one yeah. Training is going well yeah touch wood!

Eddy, Nice race especially after racing the prior week. That's an excellent time for a trail race. In that picture you like very strong, almost sprinting.

Yeah was very happy with the result. Gonna have a few weeks off racing now to get my marathon miles back in. Then a 20 mile race mid march.