A quick post after the weekend. After reading Dave Griffith's report on www.manxathletics.com forum it is hard to add too much more.
A succesful if cold day at Blackburn. I will very pleased with own effort. I had been targeting the race for a few months. Back in October I set an "optimistic" target of top 30 requiring everything to go really well with a more "realistic" target of top 40. Even taking into account the reduced field on previous years I felt that 25th was a good effort. I think the firm going suited me although it was really too hard for spikes - in hindsight short trackspikes might have been best. Having said that, those in fell running shoes also reported problems as well.
The large number of Manx Harriers runners provided lots of races within the race. Also, I did have a problem with my shoe lace coming undone towards the end of the second lap. After a steady start initially running with Russell Collister, Mike Garrett and Christian Varley I felt I was making good progress picking off some quicker starters. When my lace came undone - I had checked it three times before the start - I was just ahead of Christian and Andy Fox. Both went past me and I had to be careful not too chase after them too quickly. I think in all I probably lost 15-20 seconds in stopping, loss of concentration and momentum plus also lost the chance of a "tow" from runners further up the field. I had to run at my own pace virtually all the way to the finish.
Then just after I caught them again the same thing happened. This time I just kept going hoping my shoe would not come off. Entering the main field with 600m to go I caught Gianni Epifani and had a big final effort into the finish just holding him off on the run in.
I hope Mike is ok now after turning his ankle badly on the rough ground.
I will post some more detailed thoughts of the day in general over the next couple of days
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment