Sunday - 28/07/13

I ran in the BMAF 10000 metres championships at the Horspath track in Oxford. The weekend didn't start particularly well since my engine management system warning light came on as I was tootling along the M4. I stopped at Membury services and had a coffee while things cooled down but it didn't help. The car has developed a bad misfire. I will need to book that in to be fixed when I get back. I stayed at the Westwood  (Country) Hotel near Hinksey Hill and apart from a bit of a farce at the evening meal time it was very nice. My room had a little patio which opened out on to a lawn. It was nice weather when I got there so I was able to sit on the patio and have some coffee and fruit. As for the evening meal (the restaurant opened at 6:30pm by the way). I had a decent starter of fishcake with salad leaves and my main was OK too - chicken ballotine with boulangere potatoes and a few sticks of carrot and mange tout. Paul, Zoe and Emmie arrived just before my main course arrived and  they decided they would join me and have a dessert. Soon after confusion reigned - After my main course no one came to take our dessert order so I called a over a waiter and he said we had to wait five minutes because there was a wedding (?) I think he though we had ordered and were waiting to be served but we hadn't even ordered. Eventually Paul and Zoe gave up since Emmie was getting restless and they left. I finally managed to order a cheesecake but a few minutes later the waiter came back to apologise - they had just sold the last cheesecake! I left it at that and went back to my room and had some more fruit and some jaffa cakes! At least the lady in reception was nice, she brought a jug of milk to my room.

In the morning - I had to leave the hotel before the 9:00 am start for breakfast. So I had two mug shots in my room, one pasta and one noodle. After leaving the hotel, even with a sat nav, I managed to get lost on the way to the track but found it eventually. There was a large playing field where warm up was possible. If the grass had been wet then trail shoes/x-c shoes might have been in order but it was fine. The temperature was just right but it was a bit breezy. My previous best was 44.54 or thereabouts which I have run on two occasions. The last time was when I travelled to Coatbridge in Lanarkshire. I had a cold and an ear infection but still chose to run. Not a great day! This time there was a bit of interest before the start of the race as Dave Cox - the third best M60 runner was a no show. This meant a bronze medal might be up for grabs. Dave C did in fact turn up though - with a few minutes to spare. Therefore - I had no chance of a medal and so I decided to run my own race and planned to do 100 second laps (that's 4:10 per kilometre) hoping that I could pick up the pace later in the race if I felt OK. It actually went brilliantly to plan. Francis Day was 150 metres in front of me at one stage but I was able to catch him and beat him by a fair distance. The trigger for the pace increase was being lapped just before I reached 6K by Christopher Mason, I was faltering a little at that point. I knew my 5K time was not far off his so I tucked in behind him and let him do the work for the next 5K. Thus I ended up with negative splits - that is the second half of the race was faster than the first half. It's a good way to do it!

Split times: 4:09, 4:11, 4:11, 4:14, 4:14, 4:19, 4:01, 4:05, 4:08, 4:01 (20:59 plus 20:34 = 41:33)

4	09	249	249	4	09
8	20	500	251	4	11
12	31	751	251	4	11
16	45	1005	254	4	14
20	59	1259	254	4	14
25	18	1518	259	4	19
29	19	1759	241	4	01
33	24	2004	245	4	05
37	32	2252	248	4	08
41	33	2493	241	4	01
Out		1259		20	59
Back		1234		20	34
Total		2493		41	33.03