Bramley Race Report

Bramley was an important race, the only race I would be "racing" before IMSA. I think my coach's words were "a quality training session", but we all know that that really means a race. A good result would be a fantastic confidence boost, a poor one would not put me in the right mind set at the beginning of the four hardest weeks of training I have. My pre-race target was to break 2.04. Finish the first lap in 1.02ish and then negative split. Unsurprisingly the pace from the off was fiendishly quick and the first two miles whipped by in under 11:30. On went the brakes and I found myself a group to run with for lap one.

Feeling OK coming into half way

At the end of the first 10 miles, other than wishing I was only doing the 10 mile race, I felt relatively strong and to see 59:40 on the clock was promising. However at this point the group I was with split. Half stepped it on and one guy blew out the back leaving me with only one partner to share the next hour of hell with. Second time round the course seemed to have become considerably hillier, windier, longer and more pot-holey. Sub 2.00 dwindled in the balance at every mile split with more time lost as each marker past. Endless mental arithmetic using the Garmin's pace calculator was proving futile (partly due to the oxygen being needed in my legs and partly due to my limited numeracy) and it was only at mile 18 when the sums became easy enough for me to work out I needed two 5:59 miles to break two hours.

At times it felt like I was running in Lilliput

As is often the case when the going gets tough, two hours and one second became the guy leading my age group in Port Elizabeth, one hour 59 was Kona. two hours was nothing... and so I went, like a scalded rat. I wouldn't describe it as a sprint finish but I went a bit quicker and it was enough. I rocked over the line in 1:59.40 (chip time). Comfortable...