Tuesday night, and I'm out running with Petts Wood Runners. I'm feeling brave having looked forward to the run all day, and decide to go with James Wong. He always runs what feels like a minute/mile faster than he says he will. A large number of other people do the same. It is a large, friendly, social group with perhaps 20 runners. This is the second fastest of the groups, so it will still be done at a lively pace.
A beautiful evening, and I run at the front for the first half through the beautiful Petts Wood, catching up with a number of friends. Near Scadbury park we come to a long slow drag of a hill. I like hills, I really do. So I zip off, past Jerry. Then someone starts pushing, and before we know it we are both in an all out sprintin for the top of the hill. The thing is the faster groups don't really stop, even at the top of steep climbs.
Now I am in trouble. Having put in a full tilt sprint, I now have to keep going at a stretching pace. It takes me 3km to recover. I get talking to some interesting people and I slowly recover. Later on me and my fellow sprinter laugh at the ridiculousness of what we had done. He had suffered the same. But it was good training, in terms of character.
In the final hill up to the finish, the pace really picks up, I notice I am dropping to the back. I put in a huge effort and work my way up towards the front.
A beautiful evening, great company, bluebells. Just because life is a marathon and not a sprint, doesn't mean you shouldn't throw in the odd crazy sprint now and again.
12km around 1:09"00 (Garmin said 5"40/km)
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Hee hee Andy, I knew you would suffer when you two went sprinting up that hill. Duncan and I call it the Ski Slope as it is treacherous when wet. That was why I was treating it with respect as I knew JW would take us through Petts Wood.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree about throwing in a sprint...you have to throw in a little competitiveness on a Tuesday, pity I missed the last sprint but I was near home when I peeled off