I ran in this race last Sunday. The pre run organisation wasn't that great at this race, there was a lack of toilets and no map of the course. Met a few people from C&C at the start. Didn't really feel like racing, but gradually got into the event.
This was mostly on trails and footpaths and was more like a cross country run. The course was out and back and uphill for the first couple of miles. It was a surprise when the lead runners suddenly appeared, coming the other direction and people had to pull over to one side to let the lead runners through. Because of this it was difficult to overtake until the turn around. After the turn around which was uphill I managed to overtake quite a lot of runners. We then got to a downhill section which was along a narrow path, where it was impossible to overtake. This meant, though, that you had to keep the speed up and I did a mile in 7:19. At 7K there was a narrow entrance to get through and then an absolute monster hill to get up. At the end you had to run up a narrow track to the school and then around the field into the wind to the end.
I didn't taper for this event. I had ran 15 miles to and from work on the Monday of the week, did a mad 8 mile tempo session on the Thursday night and Cambridge parkrun on the Saturday, where I was only 17 seconds behind my PB, so I was very pleased when I finished in 48:03 a new PB for 10k, on such a challenging course.
It was a bit frustrating on the narrow paths sometimes and a bit disappointing that it was an out and back course, but overall a good race, which I may do again. I felt very satisfied to have run a new PB. May be able to get close to my target of 1:45 for the Peterborough half, hopefully, which is on a flat course and hopefully should be able to get closer to 47:00 on the flatter course of the Bonfire Burn in November.
Garmin connect here :
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/228356954
I didn't get into next year's London Marathon through the ballot, which is disappointing. Probably not doing a marathon next year, now, as will take too much training. Would like to do one really, as I think finishing in under 4 hours should be possible now ; may have to wait until 2014 to find out, though. The training would be hard and sometimes you do think on the 18 / 20 mile runs, why am I doing this, but I had such a great run at the Hamburg marathon this year, that I would like to give a marathon another go soon.
