This evening was the first race in the 2010 Harrogate & Distraict Summer Race League, organised by Ilkley Harriers. The course was 8.1k including a 2k climb up Owler Park Road & a 2k descent down Carters Lane, with a bit of flat at the beginning & end. After several weeks of warm sunny weather, it was raining & the temperature dropped a few degrees.
I decided on a cautious start heading towards the climb. Once we started going up I felt OK & started overtaking people, usually I'm not quick on the hills. There were plenty of Ilkley runners around me, Ben S a few places in front, I managed to overtake Andy W & Steve C near the top of the hill. There were quite a few Otley runners around as well, including Josie H with whom I'd been warming up earlier. At about halfway I was told that I was in 29th place (not sure how many were running - probably about 250).
I managed to overtake a few people on the descent, but was overtaken by a few others, including Mark I in the last 100m who was absolutely flying - the track sessions had clearly helped his finishing sprint. My finishing time was 31:44, which wasn't too bad for 8.1 k with those hills. Checking my Garmin stats I ran one of the kms in 3:12 - which is almost certainly the fastest kilometre that I've ever run (although it was down a steep hill).
Not seen the official results yet, but I'm hopeful of having done well in my age category & we should have done quite well in the vets & super vets (over 55) team competitions. Quite a satisfying evening's race, but really it was a fast training run in preparation for the John Carr 5k series which starts on Wednesday.
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