Road races aren't really my thing, they are just one step up from racing around a track, which seem very dull, to me. But I've grown up worked around Derby all my life, and I'm very fond of the city. So I thought I would enter my first 10km road race. I joined Team Derby Runner after I had signed up for the Derby 10km, and was proud to be running in their colours yet again, although the white on the vest is now a slight grubby off white due to the mud and slurry from previous races.
I rocked up at TDR HQ, which was the staff room of a local business on Pride park who had let us use their facilities. This meant easy parking, a secure location to leave kit, tea, coffee and sweeties, and a great place to chill out and meet with other members of TDR. After chatting with my sister, and an old friend and a new friend about number of layers to wear and to glove up or not, we were ushered out side for our TDR warm up.
Warm ups are always hit and miss for me, sometimes I think they completely suck and don't warm up the right parts of the body, and sometimes they are great. Most times I shouldn't relay on the warm up, and should do my own pre race stretches and warm up, and not blame a dodgy warm up for my post race soreness! But today's warm was fun, challenging and definitely got the legs and should nice and warm ready for the race, I'm adding 'picking the apples' and 'throwing the apples in your bags' to my regular warm up.
Straight after the warm up we walked over to the starting pens and jostled around to get those precious extra few feet closer to the start line. I always start eyeing up other peoples kit, and, rather unfairly, start judging people ability by what they are wearing. 'he's serious he's rocked up with a ultra marathon style water pack', and 'why would you run in a beanie?'. I guess this is a good way of stopping me thinking about, I'm in mountain biking shorts, heavily scarred legs, long (greasy) hair, big beard, and the only thing that makes me look like I've ever ran before is the TDR running vest. But I'm sure runners are generally non-judgement folk and only judge on your results not your amount of expensive compression kit.
When the gun fired we all surged forward for about 2 seconds before the bottle neck kicked in and everyone stopped. After this we managed to filter through the start line. I was happily cutting my way through people, but thinking 'I'm going out to fast', but I wasn't going to fast. This is a regular pace, it wasn't my usual: 'sprint off the line and get ahead of the crowd for the first obstacle' tactic. But my regular pace was strong and I spent the first kilometre or so just cutting my way through people. This was great. As we running over the first bridge all I could hear, all around me was the raining of pounding feet all around. This was great. Running in a running race surround by runners, sounds obvious, but usually when I race I'm running alone or in a small pack of 5 to 10, not 100's, and I was running faster than most of the people around me.
Once we hit the city centre I started to spot others in TDR vests and made it my mini mission to catch them and over take them, what I took off them on the downhill that took back on the uphill and there was a fair amount of to and fro through bass rec and back over the bridge to pride park, with my TDR team mates, which definitely pushed up my pace. Once back on Pride Park, I made the mistake of looking at the clock, and trying to work out my pace and how far I had run, the old adage of 'analysis is paralysis' started to become true as i was concentrating more on mathematics than simple running, and noticed I was being passed by runners. 'Fuck it just run', become my mantra until I noticed the 8km marker.
With only 2km to go, could I drop the hammer and start emptying the tank? I thought best not. I carried on at the same pace. The 9km marker soon arrived, I a couple more runners passed by the left shoulder. 'Hold on! that dude is in jogging bottoms, a longs sleeved jersey and a beanie hat!' surely I should be running faster than someone who must be close to overheating! This was my mini challenge, to keep a few steps ahead of Mr Beanie, he was running strong, I think his challenge was to beat the 'weirdo with the beardo'. As we reached Pride Park Stadium we cross the final road, into the shadow of the building and the 300 meters to go.
EMPTY THE TANK time, apologises to anyone around me as I pushed as hard as I could, talking out loud to myself 'come on! run to end', I hope I didn't insult anyone with my mutterings; as I rounded the footie stadium I could see the entrance coming close. I felt physically sick, and thought I had pushed too hard in the last 200 meters. 'Come on, final big push', as I entered the stadium, the crowds wanted to see a strong finish, not my breakfast. So I tried my hardest to give them what they wanted, as the crowds on the course had given nothing but support and encouragement all the way round. A semi-sprint finish followed by a stagger once I heard the timing computers beep to mark the end of my first 10km road race. I was exhausted and the tank was empty, as I slowly walked away from the finish line someone placed a hand on my shoulder, I turned to see who wanted my attention, and it was Mr Beanie, offering his hand in congratulations, after I had narrowly crossed the line ahead of him.
I rocked up at TDR HQ, which was the staff room of a local business on Pride park who had let us use their facilities. This meant easy parking, a secure location to leave kit, tea, coffee and sweeties, and a great place to chill out and meet with other members of TDR. After chatting with my sister, and an old friend and a new friend about number of layers to wear and to glove up or not, we were ushered out side for our TDR warm up.
Warm ups are always hit and miss for me, sometimes I think they completely suck and don't warm up the right parts of the body, and sometimes they are great. Most times I shouldn't relay on the warm up, and should do my own pre race stretches and warm up, and not blame a dodgy warm up for my post race soreness! But today's warm was fun, challenging and definitely got the legs and should nice and warm ready for the race, I'm adding 'picking the apples' and 'throwing the apples in your bags' to my regular warm up.
Straight after the warm up we walked over to the starting pens and jostled around to get those precious extra few feet closer to the start line. I always start eyeing up other peoples kit, and, rather unfairly, start judging people ability by what they are wearing. 'he's serious he's rocked up with a ultra marathon style water pack', and 'why would you run in a beanie?'. I guess this is a good way of stopping me thinking about, I'm in mountain biking shorts, heavily scarred legs, long (greasy) hair, big beard, and the only thing that makes me look like I've ever ran before is the TDR running vest. But I'm sure runners are generally non-judgement folk and only judge on your results not your amount of expensive compression kit.
When the gun fired we all surged forward for about 2 seconds before the bottle neck kicked in and everyone stopped. After this we managed to filter through the start line. I was happily cutting my way through people, but thinking 'I'm going out to fast', but I wasn't going to fast. This is a regular pace, it wasn't my usual: 'sprint off the line and get ahead of the crowd for the first obstacle' tactic. But my regular pace was strong and I spent the first kilometre or so just cutting my way through people. This was great. As we running over the first bridge all I could hear, all around me was the raining of pounding feet all around. This was great. Running in a running race surround by runners, sounds obvious, but usually when I race I'm running alone or in a small pack of 5 to 10, not 100's, and I was running faster than most of the people around me.
Once we hit the city centre I started to spot others in TDR vests and made it my mini mission to catch them and over take them, what I took off them on the downhill that took back on the uphill and there was a fair amount of to and fro through bass rec and back over the bridge to pride park, with my TDR team mates, which definitely pushed up my pace. Once back on Pride Park, I made the mistake of looking at the clock, and trying to work out my pace and how far I had run, the old adage of 'analysis is paralysis' started to become true as i was concentrating more on mathematics than simple running, and noticed I was being passed by runners. 'Fuck it just run', become my mantra until I noticed the 8km marker.
With only 2km to go, could I drop the hammer and start emptying the tank? I thought best not. I carried on at the same pace. The 9km marker soon arrived, I a couple more runners passed by the left shoulder. 'Hold on! that dude is in jogging bottoms, a longs sleeved jersey and a beanie hat!' surely I should be running faster than someone who must be close to overheating! This was my mini challenge, to keep a few steps ahead of Mr Beanie, he was running strong, I think his challenge was to beat the 'weirdo with the beardo'. As we reached Pride Park Stadium we cross the final road, into the shadow of the building and the 300 meters to go.
EMPTY THE TANK time, apologises to anyone around me as I pushed as hard as I could, talking out loud to myself 'come on! run to end', I hope I didn't insult anyone with my mutterings; as I rounded the footie stadium I could see the entrance coming close. I felt physically sick, and thought I had pushed too hard in the last 200 meters. 'Come on, final big push', as I entered the stadium, the crowds wanted to see a strong finish, not my breakfast. So I tried my hardest to give them what they wanted, as the crowds on the course had given nothing but support and encouragement all the way round. A semi-sprint finish followed by a stagger once I heard the timing computers beep to mark the end of my first 10km road race. I was exhausted and the tank was empty, as I slowly walked away from the finish line someone placed a hand on my shoulder, I turned to see who wanted my attention, and it was Mr Beanie, offering his hand in congratulations, after I had narrowly crossed the line ahead of him.
No comments:
Post a Comment