Race No. 51 - Riverside Park Run - 12 March 2016

Shouldn't have had that last glass of wine

Should I get my excuses in straight away? Well, why not?

Maybe an early morning race after a flight back from Tenerife the night before, was never going to be the best time to get a pb. Or was it that extra glass, or two of wine on our last night in Tenerife? Whatever the reason for my failure to record a sub 22 minute finish at the Riverside Park Run yesterday,  it wasn't lack of effort ( see image above).

Going back in time to 4th March it had looked so promising. We had arrived at our hotel in the south of Tenerife in good time for some afternoon sun. A couple of hours sunbathing was more than enough for me and it was time to put the trainers on and head out. Oh, I love running in the sun and followed the coast for over four miles. This pattern of having a late afternoon run was repeated the following day and I started to think that I could make it a daily event. On the third day my calf was sore and I declared a day off running and started massaging the calf.

Now, I am an expert on massaging sore or injured calves and realised that it was the former, ie; sore, rather than the latter; a pull, or tear. So it was that my intensive friction massage worked and I was able to get in another two runs before I got a real fright - was my b......y achilles sore? After losing two months from this challenge through an achilles injury, I was taking no chances and settled for those four sunshine runs. Goodness, I am starting to sound almost sensible about running and injury!

Come Saturday 12 March and I felt good when lining up at Chester le Street. After some congestion at the start, I started to get into pace and finished the first, of three laps, in just under seven minutes. Then I had to dig in as my pace dropped and whilst feeling comfortable I just could not get back down to seven minute pace. The second lap was 7.21, now for the final push - that's me about half a mile from the finish (above), to record 7.19.

No, sorry something wrong here, that would be 21.37. Ah, I see, those are mile times, meaning I did 21.37 for three miles, but of course this is a 5K race, actually 3.1miles at Chester le Street. That extra 0.1 mile took over one minute, hence 22.42. So no sub 22 minutes, but we have returned to spring sunshine and who knows we may be due a good summer and lots of running in the sun, lets hope so.