Well, the Extreme Sure Loure came and went.  I have to say that although it was the hardest MTB race I have ever done it also felt like an awful lot of it was down hill.  Maybe because my forks compressed and stayed that way after 20km...  But then, a whole lot of other things happened, including moving house (yet again), end of the road racing season and joining a triathlon club.  I also met a few new people in Frankfurt (which is home, these days).

Along with joining the tri club, I started actually training in a semi systematic and targetted manner.  Of course, the target was not the race that this topic is about, and I very nearly didn't do it because I only heard about it a few days before the event, and after the cut-off for early entries.  Weather for the weekend looked bad, so I forgot all about it until the Friday night, when I went to meet some people for a drink and the girl who had told me about it was there.  She was drinking water and headed home pretty early for a good night of sleep.  I followed a very different strategy, with intensive and sustained (mainly liquid) carbo loading, still not planning to enter.  But seeing her there had planted the seed in my mind, and when I finally awoke late the next morning I realised that my MTB had a flat tyre, I had no spare tube and had probably already missed the bunch I had planned to ride with, so I went and had some breakfast instead and then remembered this race.  The weather wasn't actually looking to bad.  I had time to fix my bike tyre, do some housework, and still get to the race in time for a late entry, and I was feeling surprisingly good.  So that was what I did.

My friend had told me in advance that it was a flat course through the woods, and that they would have one on the first Saturday of the month for the next four months, and I had somehow (don't know how) got the idea that it would be tiny, casual sort of event, with maybe 20 starters.  Sounded perfect for a nice easing back in to running, with no pressure.  Just what I wanted, especially given that I have had some problem with my hip since May, and although it was feeling improved it was still there.

On fronting at the race the first thing I noticed was that it was bigger than I expected.  There were actually nearly 400 starters.  The next thing I saw was some (slightly) familiar faces - having just joined the triathlon club, and gone to my first (swim) training session with them, a couple of the fast guys from it were there, looking very serious and fast.  Great - having been well and truly shown up in the pool very recently I was now going to get the same on foot.  Oh well. 

Amongst my many weaknesses are an overdose of pride and ego, but I worked very hard on getting into a mood where I could ignore everyone else and run my own race, because otherwise I felt I would go to hard to early and collapse.  As a result I ended up starting quite a way back from the line, among the less serious people.  The gun went and we were off.  As I had been told it was mainly through woods, but on much more formed roads than I had expected, with probably 70% being tarred road.  Quite narrow though, and there was a fair bit of traffic early. 

The first km was mainly taken up with sorting out just who should be where on the road, with a lot of waiting and passing, and it went pretty slowly as a result.  From there though things seemed to open out and I could get into more of a rhythm. I bought a new running watch a while ago, with a different foot pod.  Where the old one was perfect out of the box, this one had always felt like it was underestimating my speed, and given the emphasis the organisers had put on a professionally measured course I was curious to see how the results would look, so I took manual splits at each km.  I basically ignored the pace my watch was telling me and just went with what was comfortable.  About 2.5km in my hip started to twinge a little, so I eased off just a tiny bit, but by the 6k mark I realised that I was in fact going to make it to the finish, and was still feeling good, so I just opened up a little bit more.  By this time I was doing a bit of mental arithmatic and realised that my conservative goal of an hour was well and truly in the bag, and my expectation of 50 minutes was looking pretty safe too, so at 8km I set the new goal of 45 minutes, without being quite sure what my overall time was (I was looking at lap times).  I think up until that point there had been very few people (possibly none) pass me, but suddenly I could hear footsteps right behind me.  I stretched out just a little more to keep my place, and heard them drop back but soon catch back up.  Through 9km and I was still feeling good, so I stretched out just a little more, and then suddenly recognised where we were so I got ready for the home straight.  Rounding the corner I was going hard and had a good gap to the footsteps from behind, but alas, no finish line!  Round the next corner and there was still no finish line, and I had slowed down quite a lot, so much so that the footsteps, complete with approximately 12 year old runner, went flying past and gapped me, but around the next corner we suddenly saw the finish line.  I thought about trying to catch the 12 year old, but he had the wind at his heels and wasn't slowing down, so I finished steadily in 44:58.8.

I was pretty happy with that, and especially with how I felt through the race, both in terms of my hip and my fatigue levels.  Splits, according to course markings, were:

1k   4:49.6
2k   4:29.2
3k   4:30.9
4k   4:33.2
5k   4:34.0
6k   4:30.5
7k   4:24.5
8k   4:26.4
9k   4:27.4
10k 4:13.1

So this was quite pleasing for me, it was well ahead of where I thought I would be.  For various reasons though I want to be quite a lot faster come May, so I quickly worked out a plan involving 41 minutes next weekend, 39 minutes a month after that and 37 minutes in Feb.  This is actually quite a lot faster than I traditionally run, but I should also point out that it is a very flat and fast course, and my 45 minutes was almost exactly middle of the male field, so it should be achievable.  Except that then last week I was at a run training squad (again with the tri club) in the freezing cold, and I managed to damage my achillies to the point where I still can't walk up stairs a week and a half later, and am hoping I will be able to start on the coming Saturday.  So with the added bonus of easing my frustration and helping to retain some focus, that is my race report.

Cheers,
Rowan