It was blowing a gale when we arrived and was pissing down with rain. It's actually a big race with more than 12,000 runners and so logistics were initially a nightmare. Anyway dumped my bag at one of the charity tents which was thankfully undercover as they had ditched the cover over the normal bag drop given the lingering Storm Doris. A mad rush to get to the start line on time!
So in a nutshell I ran well up to the 7k marker heading east along the coast despite it mostly being uphill over the headland (averaging around 3.37s) but then as we turned the wind and rain came lashing in and felt like I was treading water with yet again no runners to hide behind. Despite it being downhill I was barely running 4 min ks which was particularly demoralising. There were a couple of ks of rest-bite as we headed back through the centre of town which was when 10k buzzed up smack on 37 minutes but my mojo was going rapidly. Told myself to knuckle down between 10 and 16ks as the wind was right in my face again. More 4 minute kms (WTF?). This seemed to go on for ages and was absolutely frozen with my hands numb.
Got to the turn at 16ks with the wind behind me and finally had some company as ran stride for stride with a Serpentine club runner. Looking at my watch I realised I needed to run low 3.40s to go under 1.20. Helping each other we managed it comfortably in the end crossing in 1.19.30 ish.
Have to say that I was disappointed with that and had hoped for 1.18 and to be honest I had to work really hard for it too. On a positive note, it was 1 minute quicker than last year and in much worse conditions.
Brendan ran well in 1.42 and reckon if he keeps up his long runs he will manage his goal of sub 4 in London. Pretty confident he will do that.
Home in time for boys' afternoon footie. KMs for the week: ~100.
The day's stats - clearly obvious where the wind took its toll between 7 and 16ks:
https://www.strava.com/activities/880176357
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