Graft

While Ashby had been a success, it was ultimately a stepping stone towards a greater prize. Once the euphoria had died down and the dust had settled, the general conclusion seemed to be that Ashby was a tough course with the varying gradient made trickier on the day with the wind factor. You would hope that London would be less blustery and certainly flatter profile wise so maybe my time of 2:09 would equate to something more promising like 2:06 at London, leaving 54 minutes to cover 10K on tired legs. I was about to commence my second week (of three) of 60 mile weeks. The day after Ashby was best used as a rest day despite my mind wanting to get a head start on the week, my body needed rest and duly received it. I went for a sedate bike ride with Louise just to keep my legs turning over but nothing too onerous.

I had two races booked in for the weekend, a 5 mile long leg on the 12 man Midlands AA relays at Sutton Park followed by a 5 mile league race at Desford on the Sunday. This meant I had to try and run 50 miles in four days between Tuesday and Friday! A tough ask. Being fresh for the races wasn’t an option – I resigned myself to just doing the best I could once I was there. I got up unusually early on the Tuesday and bagged 10 miles before work. It was a lovely morning and worth getting out of bed for. I didn’t push myself except for one mile towards the end and made a decent early inroad into my weekly target. The evening was club (Badgers) training in Polesworth. I did extra at the start meeting Dave and Ryan on the way down and then proceeded to (naughtily) do a completely different exercise to the one prescribed. We were meant to be doing pace pyramids whereas I just wanted to grind out a load of miles at one pace with no changes. I managed to clock up 11 miles that night and found myself getting progressively quicker. I was like a man possessed and seemed to have an enormous appetite for work that night. I trained well in terms of effort, but badly in terms of doing what I was told. I managed to conceal it from the rest of the group as I wasn’t trying to be rebellious or arrogant, just my agenda selfishly, needed to be different.

I managed another ten on Wednesday followed by another twenty with Dave and Glyn on the Thursday night. The pace was irrelevant although we did tick over quite nicely, but I struggled at 13 miles with a sore lower leg and stopped for a rare gel and some Lucozade. The way the drink went down suggested I was dehydrated which was more than likely – I had come straight from work and in my haste to be ready, neglected to get a good drink in me prior. I had a second wind and finished strongly although my leg was fatigued. I had now run 71 miles in five days and with what I had scheduled at the weekend plus a bit of warming up, I had banked enough miles to take Friday off to try and rehabilitate my leg.

I approached the relays with completely the wrong attitude. I didn’t really want to be there but refused to let the team down so went along and decided to go through the motions and get round in a reasonable time, saving a bit for the league race the following day. Subsequently, the team did magnificently well and ended up qualifying for the Nationals which is a phenomenal achievement for our little five year old club. Once I was there, I began to understand what all the fuss was about. It was a lovely day and a great event. I had been picking the brains of Rob Wills, (ex-Nuneaton Harrier, 72 minute HM and 2:46 marathoner in his prime to boot) midweek for some marathon advice and he was raving about what a great event this was. In the end I was glad to be involved, especially as we had a number of other teams also involved.

The league race went swimmingly. The Desford 5 was a new race, its forefather was the Desford 6 which funnily enough was pretty much the same race but a mile longer! I do enjoy the five mile distance. I’ve not done many of them but when I do they often seem to go well. It wasn’t a flat course so I didn’t harbour hopes of a PB despite my best being set at Wolverhampton which wasn’t flat either. I wanted to do the best I could do and hope my leg would not suffer too much. It was still tired but found my leg quite manageable when in motion, possibly because other things start to hurt more so you forget about your niggles! With so many club members coming into form, I expected to be beaten by a number of them as I pursued my plan of high mileage en-route to London. Danny Warren was coming back to form and Chris Baxter has been running consistently well now for a number of months. Matt Tonks is just an animal and Ryan Bennett is head and shoulders the quickest in the club at present and on the up so if I could get near to any of these guys then I knew I had given my best. As the race developed, I found myself making good progress running the 5K split in 17:23 which pleased me. I found myself alongside Danny and for a while we worked together as we noticed speedy ex-Badger Ian Mansell had been jettisoned from the lead group. I said to Danny we would aim to reel him in as a team on the final mile. Its harder to run on your own than in a group and we were catching him.

With no idea what position I was in, I found myself overtaking some stellar names in the Leicestershire League (stellar in my humble opinion that is). I overtook Paul Featherstone who dominated the Nice Work 5K Winter Series – a bad day for him I thought. Mark Lambell from West End got picked off too. “There’s a few big-hitters struggling today” I said to myself. It never occurred to me that I might just be doing really well. I could see Ryan and again assumed he had blown up a bit when in actual fact he was running superbly taking 5th place! Danny pulled away from me on a climb but I doubled my breathing and went ahead while he dropped back. I caught Mansell with half a mile to go and while he responded, it was a forlorn attempt as he struggled to sustain his brief surge. I picked him off and also Martin Makin too who is another real pedigree runner and finished up 9th. If I had a little more confidence I would have had a go at the guy one second in front. His form looked solid and I was pretty tired by this stage, 100 metres out. I reckoned if I attacked him he was capable of a response to put me in my place so consequently I never tried. It’s easy to forget that a lot of these guys upfront are tired too, just because you think they are superior athletes to you, it is wrong to assume they cannot be beaten.

It was only when I got home, on Mothering Sunday, that I realised I might be in for a high finish. On Facebook, Ian Mansell claimed he was 11th and I knew I was ahead of him so I must have been top ten. My usual positioning in league races was top 50 on a good day. This season I had managed a 24th place at Kibworth and experienced the truly rarefied atmosphere of 16th on my one and only cross-country appearance. I made 9th in the end, with a new PB and vets club record. Ryan beat my old 5 mile club best by 37 seconds and while I also surpassed the old mark by 15 seconds myself, I knew there was more to come from both of us over the distance given a fast flat course. It was good to see the other Badgers guys right up in the mix too. We had nine runners in the top 60 which was incredible.

I had one more week of graft ahead of me before I could enjoy my tapering period when I start to wind in the mileage and conserve some energy ahead of the big event. I have heard much debate over a two week versus three week taper. I am doing three for the simple reason that I will enjoy it more than two and an extra week of slogging my guts out!