Wednesday 28 March 2018 – South Yorkshire Road League fixture number 1 – Doncaster
This is my 12th year of competing at Road League and my 12 year of improvement (hopefully) – pretty simple pattern in my mind. Tough races against many of the best 
club runners from across South Yorkshire. Doncaster AC hosted the race and the new route was designed by me a couple of months ago. I had a couple of tasks to undertake before the race including taking some marshals to their points on the course. We were also dishing out numbers until 18:44, the race started 18:45. Not much of a warm up possible.
The first couple of miles were mainly fast and easy, I started the race fairly steady. Then we have the one long climb towards the Roman Ridge. The Roman Ridge is quite fast with a short hill towards the end, then a run in to the finish taking a couple of runners.
Splits 5:52, 5:45, 5:54, 5:53, 5:55 so quite even. Did not bother with HR data on this run.
5 Miles in 29:23 and about 19th overall, 3rd V40 man. I ran hard but not flat out. Well done Doncaster AC for hosting an excellent event
Saturday 31 March 2018 – 1500m at the Doncaster Open
I was dreading this race, give me a half marathon any day. I arrived at 07:45 to help set up the event, and stayed all day. It was freezing cold all day and raining at times. I took several hundred photos.
It was great to see such a strong field for my race, I did a quick warm up with Peter, David and Mick, and then some strides. The race went together (ladies and men) which was great, and the first lap was fast. Slowed down a bit but was keen to go sub 5, missed out by 0.1 seconds lol. Was over taken with about 20m to go by David who ran a great race to go sub 5. Considering I am marathon training, so better in longer races at the moment I was pleased to run a PB for the distance (hopefully Power of 10 will agree). It was over very fast and I was glad to get home and get warm.
Again well done to Doncaster AC for hosting the event.
Monday 2 April 2018 – Ackworth Half Marathon
I entered this at the last minute, it is part of the club championships so why not. I had not done this race before. I had a chat with Carl Ryde who suggested I should not go flat out as I need to start building up my energy for London.
My warm up consisted of jumping out of the car and running 100m to the start on a very muddy field.
Carl suggested I run the first half easy, something like 6:30 minute miles and the second half faster, around my target marathon pace. So I kind of did this and ran the second half 2 minutes quicker than the first half. I passed 6 runners in the second half which was interesting as I usually get passed myself.
Photo taken about 12 miles in to the race by GB Images Photography
The weather was appalling with snow / rain falling, freezing conditions (but no ice), flooded roads and some wind.
The course is quite hilly but on a good day I would run a good time, some good down hill sections.
I finished full of energy and totally soaking wet, I got changed quickly in the car and ate my chocolate peanuts. 7th place and 2nd V40 with 1:22:16. I believe I got silver in the Yorkshire Vets Championships V40.
Post race analysis shows the first half was the bottom end of Zone 3 – Tempo and the second half was the bottom to middle of Zone 4 – Sub threshold. The HR spiked on the hills but this is to be expected as I did not slow down much.
Kit check – I really do try to keep costs down:
Mizuno Wave Rider 20 – £75
Arm Warmers (which were brilliant and did not slip down once) – £5
Ron Hill shorts – £15
1000 Mile compression socks – £15
Zip Vit Gel Belt – £10
Gloves – £ Free on a bike magazine
Fenix 3 – £ a lot but its given me 3 years service so far
Performance data:
My Garmin VO2 max estimate remains as high as it has ever been and my runbritain rankings are going the right way again.
