I'm a little bit slow in getting this post out but on Easter Friday I raced in the Guernsey 10k, well I say raced, technically it was training. Having missed a bit of training a few weeks back we decided (that's John, my coach & I) that it was better to get a key marathon paced session in... the session planned was a 20k split up run, which was 10k at race pace and 10k faster but rather than run this completely on my own I ran the first 10k at race pace before the race, iterally finishing a minute before, threw my vest on and then turned round and ran the 10k race. The route that I have been using for my marathon paced sessions has been along the west coast of the island anyway which is same stretch of road used for the race so it made sense to combine things. It was nice to have some company too on the second 10k and the pace that the guys around me were running (at least the first 5k) was pretty much what I was aiming for. Unfortunately the second 5k slowed down a bit, it got a bit tactical and was also into a strong wind. In hindsight I should have just pushed on as after all it was training session, however I got a sniff of victory so I sat in for a couple of km's while running into wind. With 1km to go though I did pushed on (in what turned out to be a nasty stretch into the wind), this broke up the group of 5 runners, all except a young lad called Jonny Hay, who sat in for the ride and then took advance of the 19.5km in my legs and out kicked me. Overall though I was pleased with the workout, generally I felt pretty good within myself, although strangely my heart rates were a bit higher than I would have expected. As it turns out this may have been an early warning sign as the following evening I came down with stomach bug! unfortunately missing my sunday run. Luckily it was just a 24hour thing and I was out running again on the following day, it wasn't pleasant being in the same room as though on Sunday though!
It's only just over 2 weeks to London now and I'm starting to get that excited and nervous feeling that comes with the build up to an important race. This is definately one of the best bits about racing and knowing that I'm feeling this way is always a good sign for me. When I starting to feel like this I know that i'm starting to get both body and mind ready to race. When I feel nothing it usually means one of two things... either the race doesn't mean anything to me and I'm unlikely to raise my game or I'm simply to tired from training to get excited, which I tend to feel sometimes during heavy periods of training. Funnily enough I was listening to radio one yesterday on the way to do my last marathon session and a song came on which kind reminded me why I like racing, its song called Everybody's Free (to wear sunsreen) by Baz Luhrmann, the lyrics are apparently from a essay which was publish in US newspaper in 1997 (thanks to wikipedia for that the info :@) the lyrics are basically all spoken and is essentially advice but one particular line says 'do something everyday which scares you', racing feels a bit like this, I guess a bit like riding a roller coaster, the anticipation can be scary and gets the adrenaline pumping but afterwards you are buzzing and you want to do it all over again. Perhaps not straight away in the case of the marathon mind you!
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