Tidewater Striders Distance Series 25k

Today’s 25k was my fourth race this month. Earlier in the week I was definitely looking forward to another race at Fort Story in Virginia Beach and seeing how close I could get to my predicted finish time courtesy of the McMillan Running Calculator. Based on my 20k time earlier in January (1:19:53), the calculator spewed out a predicted finish of 1:41:29 which is 6 minutes 32 seconds per mile – quite manageable I thought.

Training was going well and after an easy 4.5 mile treadmill on Thursday evening before The Spirit Of The Marathon movie, I felt hopeful of a good race. However, Friday would soon change my positive outlook on the race. Sometime during Friday morning my left ear starting hurting and the pain got so bad I decided to leave work early – something I rarely do. I slept for a few hours in the afternoon but still felt rough when I woke up. I contemplated not racing on Saturday morning, but to be honest didn’t want to pull out and ruin my streak of running in every Tidewater Strider Grand Prix race since the end of 2005. I decided to sleep on it and make a decision when I woke up.

Saturday morning soon rolled around and even though my ear still hurt, I decided to run. I planned on wearing a hat during the race to keep the cold out and hoped everything would be ok. Fast forward a couple of hours and I find myself warming up for a couple of miles wearing a warm woolly Welsh hat! The wind wasn’t too bad and I figured I’d be fine during the race.

At 9:00am the horn sounded to start the race. Actually it didn’t sound much like a horn, it was probably suffering from the cold like most of the runners lining up at the start. Warming up I decided to disregard the predicted time from the McMillan Running Calculator and just run by feel. To be honest, I just wanted to complete the 25k distance and feel as good as possible throughout the race – no need to really suffer today.

The first couple of miles felt great. I was able to run with Charlie from Running Nowhere Fast and enjoyed a pleasant conversation which helped the miles pass quickly. I found out Charlie wasn’t feeling great either, but he was running like he was on top of the world.

A couple of miles into the race I was aware of a scratchy feeling on my right ankle. I looked down and noticed the electronic timing chip I was wearing was rubbing the tendon on the back of my ankle. I had two choices – put up with the annoying scratching or stop, adjust the velcro strap and continue. As it was still really early in the race I decided to stop, so I checked behind me before pulling off to the side of the course. It probably took about 10 seconds to undo the band, pull it further up my calf and then re tighten it. Wearing gloves didn’t help 🙂 As I adjusted the strap I noticed my ankle was bleeding quite a lot and quite a deep welt had appeared. Oh well, no time to worry about that now…

I made sure I didn’t sprint to catch the runners I was previously running with and just settled into a comfortable pace. After all, there were still 13 miles to race! Another mile down the road (around the 3.5 mile mark) the timing strap loosened and slipped down my calf – this time I decided to put up with the annoyance and carried on running.

I ran most of the second circuit with good friend and experienced runner, Charlie Schindler. We ran stride for stride, time passed quickly and I concentrated on keeping up with his great pace. I felt like he was in control of our dual and this was soon confirmed as he surged up one of the classic Fort Story hills, somewhere before the 8 and 9 mile marks. I surged back, drew level with Charlie then moved slightly ahead of him. It was only when I looked behind me just after the 15k mark that I realized Charlie was no longer with me and I was on my own with 10k to run.

20 seconds up ahead were a couple of runners trading places on a regular basis. I decided to try to catch them, bridge the gap and maybe challenge their position in the race. The next mile was a quicker 6:18 mile (compared to miles in the 6:30 to 6:35 range) and I closed the gap to about 8 seconds. After an even faster 6:17 mile I was just 1 second behind one of the runners – the other one representing the British Army had surged ahead. I tried my hardest to stay with the mystery runner, but he was too strong and gradually pulled away. I felt quite weak after my 2 quick miles and was disappointed not to be able to respond to his surge.

Time was running out in the race, but the Army runner appeared to be slowing down. The mystery guy had caught and passed Army guy which gave me a renewed enthusiasm and motivation. Somehow I managed a surge, and was able to catch Army guy and fellow Brit at the bottom of a hill with just a couple of miles to go. We ran stride for stride up the hill, but once again I felt weak and he pulled away on the downhill. From here it was just a question of survival for me.

The last couple of miles were tough, but I maintained a good pace and finished strongly with a time of 1:41:19 – 10 seconds faster than McMillan predicted based on my 20k time a few weeks ago. According to the astonishingly accurate calculator I’m looking at a half marathon time next week of around 1:24:10 and a 30k time of 2:03:14 in mid February. We’ll see I guess.

All in all, an enjoyable race, despite not feeling 100%. However, the Shamrock Marathon is only 7 weeks away, and although my weekly mileage is increasing, I really need to get in some long runs.