4 March - Milton Keynes Winter Monsoon

Well if I thought yesterday's weather had started off bad, it was nothing compared to today.  My friend Audrey came down from Tyne & Wear last night, so it was a great chance to catch up on news over the winter with a glass of wine (nutritional purposes only of course).  

It was already spitting with rain as we left Nottingham this morning and by the time we got to Milton Keynes our black bin-liners were ready for their baptism.  We then met up with Craig & Jo and had our pre-race photo

Photo c/o Craig Poxon

At the start, I forgot to turn my Garmin on until we were a couple 100m gone, so I reckon I probably lost a minute before switching it on.  Even though the start was downhill, it was gradual and not as steep as it looked on the profile, so that, together with how congested it was at the beginning,  made attempts to get a bit of a pace going over the first couple of miles more difficult than anticipated and so we started off around 8:50 min/mile.  After 3 miles Jo and Craig edged their way forward and Audrey and I ran together for the next couple of miles. I was having a problem maintaining the pace so fell back a bit but managed to keep Audrey in sight for the rest of the run.  It continued to rain all the way around and although it was 4°C it felt much colder (must have been the fact that we were all drenched through) .  There were quite a few subways under the dual carriageways which was all very well going down them but always meant there was a hill on the other side.  As we were going down them, I repeatedly found myself overtaking one girl in a turquoise top, but she was better at those short hills than me so by the time we'd come up the other side, she'd always overtake me again.  Fortunately over the last mile I was able to keep in front so managed to finish just in front at the end :-)  . It was at this point that the rain turned to sleet and by the end of the race it was practically snow. The last hill although quite gradual was quite tough,so I ended up slowing down to a 10:38 min/mile, but somehow found a little bit extra for the finish and was pleased to manage a semi-sprint (nothing compared to Lou's last week) and did the last 200m in a 8:38 min/mile.  Hands and face were absolutely frozen and it took ages to get my feeling back in my fingers.  

The official times aren't out yet, but I think Jo said she did it around 1h 57m, Craig 2h 1m and Audrey 2h 3m and I brought up the rear at around 2h 4m.  This is the breakdown for the run from my Garmin (although I think my final time will probably be a minute longer due to turning it on late).

Garmin Run Profile

After we got changed we warmed ourselves up with coffees and teas, defrosting our hands on the Mugs followed by a nice spot of lunch at Ask.  

Incidentally when I got home, I dried off my running clothes and by calculating the difference in weight worked out that by the end of the race I was carrying 800ml/800g of water by the finish.  I hadn't calculated on carrying that amount of weight around as a handicap ;o)

I just wanted to say thank you so  much to Audrey Jo and Craig for making what could have been a really rotten run into an interesting and challenging race :) xxx