Pre-run, there was a great little assembly area with a stage with a PA guy, a baggage tent, a load of portaloos, a coffee/burger van and an ice-cream van. The PA guy kept giving regular updates about when the race would be starting and announced that a warm up session was going to be held before the run. Now these group warm up's aren't really my thing. I like to try and just get into my own zone and do my own warm up, so while the majority of others were doing some aerobics I went through my own dynamic stretching routine.
Me doing my warm-up routine!
The race was delayed by 5 minutes because of the weight of traffic still trying to get into the venue, but it wasn't long before the PA guy asked all the sub 45 minute runners to line up, followed by the sub 60 minute runners, then finally the runners for over and hour, which was my call. We weren't made to wait for long at all before the race began, and it took about 3 minutes to filter everyone through.
When I entered this run it was advertised in runners world as a flat road race. I thought that it sounded perfect. The start of the run was on grass for about the first kilometre, before it moved onto trails that you find in most woodlands and it was very muddy in places and where it wasn't it was stony and very uneven. If I had known this I would have bought/borrowed some trail shoes. It was also the Yorkshire type of flat, which is more commonly known as undulating everywhere else.
Despite this I completed my first 5k in 36 mins 42 seconds, before reaching the drinks station. Due to the water bottles being screw-top I found out that I can't run and drink water at the same time. Well not without giving my sinuses a good rinse out. So I slowed down to a walk to take some water on. Looking back now I shouldn't have bothered and should have just kept running, but hey ho.
We were warned pre-run about a hill at about the 7km stage. What they didn't say was that it was blooming massive and went on for well over a kilometre and was so steep that there was no way that I could run up it. I got about 1/4 of the way up before I had to stop running. Not even the hill-work at Tyne Bridge Harriers earlier this week was going to get me up this hill. I decided the best thing to do was to walk up it, and save my energy to finish off the run.
A Kite waiting to pick off any stragglers on the hill.
As soon as I reached the top of the hill I started to run again. I knew I had less than 2k left, and had a chance of getting to the finish before my target time. I knew I could make it to the end, and so focused on the task in hand. It wasn't long before we were turning back into the field we had started at. As I crossed the finish line I stopped my watch at 1hr 19mins 51 seconds. I was made up. I had wanted to finish before 1hr 20mins and I had squeaked in with 9 seconds to spare. I collected a bottle of water, Mars Bar and T-shirt, no medal booooooooo, and found my brother just outside the finishing area.
Within minutes of finishing I received a text from the organisers with both my time from the gun and the time from my timing chip crossing the start line, and my chip time was spot on 1hr 19mins 51seconds. Brilliant. I wasn't last either which was my main fear. I checked my pace on my Garmin and had averaged 12.44 per mile which was great, considering the hill of death had certainly taken its toll.
The biggest downside of the day was trying to get out of Harewood house. We finally got out 1 hour and 20 minutes after I finished! It seriously took me longer to get out the car parking area and back on the road home than it did to run the 10k! However all in all it was a great event.
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