Tuesday 20 June 2017

More Cowbell, less stitch please.

All races should have cow bells, takes me back to watching Ski Sunday with my Dad as a child.

Anyhoo, the Wetherby fixture was a week ago now. It was a warm night, again. Another good turn out of Harriers among the runners, I'll have to check how many there were.

It's all on road this one, a very simple circular route. We were off quickly, too quick as when I glanced at my watch I was doing sub-7/min miles! That is not sustainable, not for me anyway! However, within a few strides of setting off, I started with stitch. Really bad stitch. We went into a downhill stretch and I had to slow right down, almost to a walk as the pain was so great. Right from side-to-side and up the middle of my sternum. Fellow Harriers were overtaking me as I struggled on.
At around 2 miles, we reached the turn around point, and the marshal with a cow bell!
I managed to get into a bit of a rhythm and the stitch eased a little. We started heading up hill and now I was able to run at last and powered my way past numerous runners, some of whom were walking up the really quite gentle slope! I can only think that as this is quite a short race (4.3 miles) that people try and sprint the whole thing then run out of steam on the hills. I have in previous years passed people who are on the grass verge heaving!
As comfortable as I was on the uphill, anything even slightly downhill caused the stabbing pain to come back. At last, with the second hill out of the way, I knew the finish was around the corner and I was able to stride out and finish well, despite being rather sore.

Not my best performance and way off a PB.


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