Blazing Blaydon

My training has really taken off in the last couple of weeks, including a first competitive outing of the season at the Blaydon Race. As the song goes "I went to Blaydon Races, twas on the 9th June", which also happened to be the start of the World Cup. With the sun blazing I headed to the Crow's Nest to watch the first half of Germany v Costa Rica before heading doon the Bigg Market for the race. We don't get much hot weather in these parts so I'm reluctant to complain about it, but it didn't half make the race difficult.

I had set myself two targets, the first was to beat last year's time of 36:37 and the second was my PB for the race of 35:27. I knew that a PB was going to take a pretty special performance and these hopes all but disappeared with the hot weather on the night. With the evening sun beating down on my bald head I was never going to be able to maintain the required pace of 6:10 for the entire 5.73 miles.

It's a popular event and the first mile was the usual zigzagging through the crowds of runners and occasionally mounting the pavement. I clocked the first mile at 6:30, and then as the runners thinned out I hit a 6:10 for mile 2 followed by a 5:58 along the flat, straight stretch of Scotswood Road. It was at this point I started to feel the heat. We were running directly into the sun and negative thoughts started to enter my head, including "You're thinking of running a marathon later in the year? Are you crazy?". I battled hard to maintain my pace but mile 4 slipped to a 6:30 and mile 5 an even slower 6:37.

I knew the PB was long gone but hadn't bothered to calculate whether I was on target to beat last year's time. I just dug deep and pushed as hard as I could for the last three quarters of a mile. I was helped through this by another runner going about the same pace as I was. First I passed him, and then he came back and passed me. This continued right to the end of the race and it helped me to a time of 36:08. I spoke with the lad at the finish and we bemoaned the weather conditions. He then professed that perhaps he shouldn't have run so hard given that he was entered in a marathon the following day! Better him than me.

Can't say I enjoyed the race as much as usual, it was such a struggle to maintain my pace in the conditions. However, after the race I took satisfaction in my performance and already looking forward to next year. Reflecting on the race, I really need to work on my mental toughness. Often during races I let the pace slip during the middle to latter stages, but am still able to put on a spurt in the last mile. I need to work on maintaining my pace even when the going gets tough.

I gave myself a day off the following day, but returned to training on the Sunday clocking a 1:20:44 for 11.35 miles (7:07 per mile) in my long run. This past week I’ve managed to fit in plenty of World Cup watching with my training and ran a total of 49 miles across 6 runs. I rounded the week off on Sunday with a run of 13.35 miles in 1:35:15, an average pace of 7:08 per mile. Very pleased with this performance given the weather was warm again and I’d had a few bottles of beer watching the football on Saturday night. Things are looking good at this point.