The woods were a lot wetter than a few weeks ago, lots of large puddles and swampy patches to run through, so was expecting this would effect the times as the ground felt heavier to run on, was much harder to go fast on the downhill sections.
Last time I reckon I went out too slow, so today I decided to try and get into a faster pace earlier on. At the start line I noticed a few runners from a couple of weeks earlier who had put in times similar to mine, one guy was a bit quicker so decided to initially use him as my pace man. As we got going I soon caught up with the 2 familiar runners, they were not going fast enough for my liking, so I just went past them and got in with a couple of other runners.
One of them was about 16 I reckon and looked like he was struggling on the drag up section, so I went past him, but then on the downhill he literally sprinted past me. I tried to peg him but he was now a fair bit ahead. As we got to the main hill on the course I brought him and another runner back and sat on their coat tails, I was trying to get past them but again as we hit the downhill section they got a good 20 metres or so on me.
Came into the final sprint for the line and I could hear a guy coming after me so I nailed the last section and kept him behind me.
I got 8th place in a time of 18min 59 seconds, well pleased as first time I have gone under 19 mins, was very close though.
Waited for Mrs S and gave her a cheer as she came in. She did a great time for her first run of 26mins and 30 seconds. She was 16th female, 95th overall. Reckons she can go a lot faster as she took it a bit easy on the first lap as was a bit too muddy for her.
This event is great fun, was the 100th edition today and had 211 competitors. Not bad for a volunteer supported event.
Cheers
Marek....
