Christmas Enigma

#168 Christmas Enigma  4:39

Leading it out

At the bridge

This was a pretty low profile event around the Caldecotte lakes in Milton Keynes. I have done this route a few times before but had never cracked 4hrs on it, though getting close on each occasion. I havnt been in that great a form in recent weeks and the weather forecast was not good so my hopes were not high. It was as usual 7.5 laps around the lake.

The course was about 1.5hrs away from Basingstoke so it was commutable and I was able to spend all of Friday getting introduced to my new granddaughter Ivy who was only a few days old having arrived a couple of weeks early.

Chatting to Tids

I arrived early, picked up my number and hid in the car out of the cold. There was a quick race brief from Foxy and a nice presentation from Traviss to Foxy on his 250th marathon. Getting to the start line I had a chat to Noel Keenan on the eve of his birthday and he was there for the double over the weekend. No-one seemed to want to go to the front of the group so I stepped forward and led the race off to immediately be over taken by a speedy lady and the amazing Steve Edwards. I settled in for the first mile with Louise Tidbury talking about her plans for 5 100 milers in 2017 and a 200 miler. From behind there was a detailed discussion going on about 100 mile strategies with the preferred strategy being going out at 8:20 mile pace and finishing at 11 minute mile pace to give an average of 10 mins and a 16 hr finish time. Louise and I just looked at each other and our conversation was more about finishing, not giving up, crying and beating the cut off.

Finish

Anyway Louise in great form headed off into the distance and would finish in 4 hrs 20, just 10

Soaked

minutes behind super Kay. Noel also flew past as did quite a few others of the faster runners.  I wasn't feeling that great and just at the end of lap one had to have elongated toilet break.  I continued on lapping in a leisurely 37 minutes. Half way through lap 3 I caught up with Costas and spent a bit of time talking about Greece, his impending 100 and good coffee in Reading. As we came through the end of lap 3 in 1:52 I thought I was on 4hr pace before realizing that I was a whole mile off and half way came up in a disappointing 2:15.

Done

Finishing Lap 4 I started to feel hungry and tired. I had brought no gels with me and totally ran out of energy and less than half way through the lap I was walking and loosing many places. It also had been raining for a while and it would stay with us for the rest of the day and would get heavier and heavier.

Martyn "100"

This was a hard lap and very very slow and destroyed any chance of a good time. By the time I got to the end I had to goto the car and get a can of coke. I walked as I drank this and some water and eventually started up again. Thankfully I managed to get a pace going again. I managed to run virtually the whole lap by breaking down the lap into 500m sections. When I came round to get the bell
at then end of lap 6 I was felling strong again and my lap 7 was one of my best. I even managed to catch most of those who had passed me a couple of laps earlier and seeing Costas about 800m ahead of me with only a couple of K to go I tried my best to catch him and just managed to get him with 100m to go.

I was travelling pretty good when I crossed the line in a very disappointing 4:39.

It was great to see Martyn Ewers get his 100 shirt. I had seen a lot of him all year at many events.

Photos courtesy of Dee Rand and Trish Randall

Stats for today