I seem to be coming something of a track specialist recently with all of my last 4 races being on the track. Today was the Northern Vets 10000m championships held at the Leigh Sports Village. There were about 30 people taking part in the race, with just 4 or 5 in my age group. Conditions were perfect for running, ideal temperature, sunny, no wind & no hills.
My intention was to try to run at 90 seconds per lap & see how it went from there. For the first 7 or 8 laps I was following Mervyn Ward from Warrington AC (who I'd raced against recently in the NVAC 5000m), we were the two main contenders for the M55 medals. For the first 5k I ran 18:53, which was fairly close to the 90 second per lap target, but I slowed quite a bit in the 2nd half to record 38:44. This is quite a bit slower than I've done for 10k on the road this year, but was quick enough to get me a gold medal, by about 10 seconds from Mervyn.
My relatively modest time was also enough to get me a 4th place UK ranking for 10000m for M55, which is more of an indication of the lack of long distance vets track races than any great speed from me. My recent spurt of track events has resulted in 2 gold & 2 silver medals (1st NVAC 5000m & 10000m & 2nd BMAF 5000m & NVAC 1500m).
Next up is the Yorkshire Vets road relay championships in Ilkley. We have a strong M50 'A' team of which I should be our slowest runner, so hopefully we have chance of doing well. Not sure that I'm looking forward to the 1 mile climb Of Carters Lane (nor the fast descent of Curly Hill).
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