Update on recent races

No excuses for not blogging for a couple of months apart from laziness. Here is a summary of racing activity in the past couple of months:

Yorkshire Vets road relays. My main job at this event was organiser of the men's teams for Ilkley Harriers. With 28 runners in 8 teams, there certainly was a lot of organising to be done, especially with the usual late withdrawals & search for replacements. I put myself in the M50 A team, which on reflection was probably not the sensible option. I would have been better placed in the B team, due to lack of form & distractions before the start sorting out numbers & making sure that everyone was present & correct. Nevertheless we managed a team second place finish, mainly due to a storming run from Eddie I, we narrowly beat our M50 B team.

Ilkley 5 (Ben's race). This low key race on a very hilly course was mainly a fund raising effort to raise money towards sending a young lad from Ilkley to America for hospital treatment. Following a family party, curry & late night, I wasn't in the best shape to race, but it was more the taking part that was important, rather than the result. For the record, I finished in 12th place in 31:49.

International Open Masters cross country - Dublin. I travelled to Dublin as 1st reserve for the England M55 team. I wasn't required for the team, as all of the selected runners showed up, so I ran in the Open race for reserves & other local vets. I finished as 2nd M55 in the Open race in about 20th position overall. It was a really enjoyable weekend in Ireland. The standard of racing in the main races was of a very high standard.....not sure that I'll ever be a 'real' cross country runner. I was probably fortunate to get selected as a reserve for England based on my track & road results.

Abbey Dash 10k. I wasn't intending to run this race, only entering it a few days before (my intention had been to prepare for the Thirsk 10 the following week - which got cancelled due to the ice). In near perfect conditions I managed to knock a minute off my time from last year's Abbey Dash in 36:53. However, I was disappointed to get beaten on the line by Shaun Jordan of Bingley, who just got the better of me by 1 second in the M55 race - although I did beat him by one second on chip timing. We've been very evenly matched each time we've raced each other this year. It was the fastest 10k that I've run since 1983, so I probably should be satisfied.

Bradford Parkrun 5k. This isn't the fastest 5k course, with a challenging hill up the side of Emm Lane to be climbed 3 times, then an extra uphill section at the finish. I was reasonably happy with a 3rd place finish in 18:54. I was just 7 seconds slower than I'd done on this course in April.

Peco cross country - Rothwell. There was a light covering of snow & below freezing temperatures for this tour around Middleton Park woods in Leeds. I seem to be relatively much slower at cross country than I am on the road or track, but I try to convince myself that it must do me some good to run the occasional off road race. Not got the official results yet, but I finished in 33rd place, which is similar to my typical result last winter in this series.


Assuming that I can get motivated to blog regularly again, I'll do an update on training activities. Over the last two or three weeks, I've increased the volume & intensity of my training in preparation for upcoming races. Despite the recent snow & ice, I've been managing to run at least 100k per week with one or two fast sessions in addition to races.