A day at the seaside

[andygates]

On Sunday I ran the Weston AC Christmas Cracker 10km run. 

The conditions were perfect: cool, bright and still - yes, no wind at Weston, the Southwest's prime kitebuggy beach, a miracle.  It must have been all the Little Baby Jesuses or something: this was a fancy-dress event so the serious club runners were in a single bit of tinsel, and the serious charity runners were going as entire Nativity scenes (there were two!) or mobs of Wise Men and Sexy Santas.  I donned some angel wings and a tinsel halo and hit the beach. 

The plan was that ehutch and I would pace around for a 55:00 finish, leaving despaer up ahead to mount an assault on a serious time. The beach was a little harder-going than we'd like (but easier than at Burnham, man, everything is easier than Burnham - Ice Cold In Alex was easier than Burnham).  After 7k of tougher-than-expected-for-so-flat running we split and I had a good old gurn to the finish before my hips seized up completely, then it was off to enjoy the finishers' mince pie and be surprised at how good I felt. 

Time?  I finished in 57:10, which is a PB for that distance by well over two minutes.  (I'll let the others post-mortem their own runs)  The pacing alarm on the Suunto worked a treat, though I'll have to calibrate it with a GPS-measured klick as it said I did 10.25km.  Certainly it's easy to pick up the pace when the thing's beeping "beep-beep-beep, pick-it-up!".  The 55:00 target was a tad optimistic given the lack of training ;)  Apparently I was putting out an average 161BPM, so about 5-10 over my usual run - which was what I wanted to do and was the sustainable max I could manage.  And the new shoes came right on the day, which eases my worry about having hurled a ton of cash at the wrong bling.  Generally happy with my performance and confident that I can keep working at that distance for the Olympic. 

Photos and official times when the club get them online...

Comments

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The cool air was nice - I was in a Helly longsleeve base, buff, gloves and sexy compression running tights, and that was just right balanced against my output.

The new shoes are Brooks Beasts. Horendibly expensive but they're a nice motion-control sole and *gasp* a wide square toe-box so no little-toe pinching. The issue I was having was just setting the tension of the elastic laces right; looser than I thought, ultimately.

[skean.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it. I like Brooks, but had some Beasts a few years back and they did NOT agree with me. They were just too stiff for me, forcing my feet into a style I didn't like. I run like a duck though, so maybe they can't cope with that :-)

Nice time - beating your PB by 2 mins on sand? I'd say it sounds like you're starting to get used to this running thing you know.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Thanks - as you well know, happy shoes are a match between feet and footwear, so I can't really be a brand whore. I'd have stayed with the Saucony Grids if I hadn't changed to a forefoot strike, and lost enough weight to recover some of my arches!