Not sure where that came from but I am not complaining:
Yesterdays Blaydon race was held, unlike the last couple of years in warm and gloriously sunny conditions. As the field of 4000 or so lined up in front of St Nicholas Cathedral, I stuck to my plan of lining up well down the field with the aim of a steady run/jog around the course. As the cathedral bells tolled out 3 o clock the race got underway.
Blaydon is a notoriously fast start but by starting well down in the field it seemed to take an age to actually reach the start line and when I did I was immediately frustrated by not being able to run. The first mile then, was spent weaving my way past other runners and trying to convince myself that this was what I needed to stop me from going off to fast.
By 2 miles I had hooked onto the back of club mate Mike, who, unlike me had unintentionally had a poor start . Letting Mike pull me along over the next mile I was feeling fairly comfortable so decided to try to push on.
Crossing Scotswood Bridge and I was still working my way through the field. By now I was starting to recognise more and more of the runners in front of me and started targeting certain individuals to pass.
Running over the fly-over into Blaydon knocked some of the stuffing out of me, but I was still passing people. Finally reaching the finish at Shibdon Park, where I tried to muster a sprint finish, which didn't quite materialise.
Still a finish time of 36.37 (chip time 36.11) is far more than I had expected. So I have to be happy with that. Also just to make things even better a quick look at the results and it looks as though I was 2nd M55 behind Barry Allsopp of Wallsend who did 36.26 (36.15) chip time.
At the front end the race was won by Bonniface Kiprop in 26.26
Full race results can be found at www.racetimingsystems.net
Thanks to Liam for the photo
Blaydon is a notoriously fast start but by starting well down in the field it seemed to take an age to actually reach the start line and when I did I was immediately frustrated by not being able to run. The first mile then, was spent weaving my way past other runners and trying to convince myself that this was what I needed to stop me from going off to fast.
By 2 miles I had hooked onto the back of club mate Mike, who, unlike me had unintentionally had a poor start . Letting Mike pull me along over the next mile I was feeling fairly comfortable so decided to try to push on.
Crossing Scotswood Bridge and I was still working my way through the field. By now I was starting to recognise more and more of the runners in front of me and started targeting certain individuals to pass.
Running over the fly-over into Blaydon knocked some of the stuffing out of me, but I was still passing people. Finally reaching the finish at Shibdon Park, where I tried to muster a sprint finish, which didn't quite materialise.
Still a finish time of 36.37 (chip time 36.11) is far more than I had expected. So I have to be happy with that. Also just to make things even better a quick look at the results and it looks as though I was 2nd M55 behind Barry Allsopp of Wallsend who did 36.26 (36.15) chip time.
At the front end the race was won by Bonniface Kiprop in 26.26
Full race results can be found at www.racetimingsystems.net
Thanks to Liam for the photo
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