59.46........And Relax.

Over the last few months, I have used this blog to poke fun at some good running pals, notably Steve Bennett and Steve Angus, both have been, and still are (well maybe not Stevie B any more )  very, very good road runners.
Both of them have, countless times ran well under the hour for ten miles and well under three hours for the marathon, both of them I have uppermost respect for ( well maybe not Stevie A), and have recorded times that I will never get close to, but neither of them have done the Bob Graham Round in 21 hours.
In fact they haven't even attempted the BGR.......yet.
So for that reason alone they will carry on been the blunt of my crap jokes. Losers.

My point is for the last 2-3 months I have been road running, a lot, mainly to try and get under the hour for ten miles which I consider the Holy Grail for me!

After some decent half marathon times I thought I would push myself a little bit harder and try for it at Brampton - Carlisle, today.

The race sets of from Brampton, after getting a bus from Carlisle and you run back, the course is historically quick mainly because the changing rooms/showers are small at the sands centre. First back, first changed!

Walking nervously to the start

I set off with the plan of keeping up someone one who I thought I could keep up with. I couldn't.

After the first mile I glanced down at my watch only to realise that I had not set it off. I pushed the start button again and decided I would keep check on my time from now.

I tried to keep with this guy. He ran it in 56 mins

At mile two the fella I was trying hard to keep up with was obviously too quick for me and I let him go. I glanced down at my watch to see what time I had ran the second mile in.It was blank, I had failed to press the button correctly. I gave up on the stop watch idea and reverted back to GMT.

At five miles I was really struggling with the pace and felt rubbish. I calculated that if the race had set off on time I had ran the 1st 5 miles in 29 minutes. This spurned me on, but more importantly I stopped trying to race people around me and started to relax more. My running improved and it felt easier. 6,7 and 8 miles felt much better. I have ran this race a few times before and never have liked mile 8 to 9 but I pushed on and even caught another runner up. The last mile was a case of just hanging on but I felt like I was catching people up.

Club mate Alan M storming around

I crossed the finish line and asked the guy who was right behind me what his time was, he said "59.48". But I still couldn't be sure if I had managed it.

After collecting my bag from the holding room and had a quick shower (they are actually quite big) and then went outside to wait anxiously for the results to come through.

Again a good turn out from Eden Runners, who this week have fielded three teams for the Pennine relays in January. For a smallish club, quite a achievement.

Bumped into Steve Angus, who had also ran the race. He has only started running  2 weeks ago after a stress fracture had stopped him running for 10 weeks.
He was 11 minutes behind his PB for this course.
He still managed 64 minutes tho!!

Steve Angus. Gobbing off no doubt.

Finally the results came out and my time was 59.46

Wonder when the two Stevens are going to step up to the Bob Graham Round?

Big thanks to Micheal Pluckrose for the photos. ( with the use of Stevie A's camera)