My running club's Summer League serious is some of my favourite races. In particular the standard distances of 10k, 5 mile plus the East Park 4 mile ( not so much the Hedon 4 as the wind can be leg sapping at that race). The first race is the New Ellerby 5 - a fast flat rolling countryside route. I was looking forward to this one but nervous as ever.
This was due to an indifferent start to the year and a marginally disappointing Vale Of York 10 just 2 days earlier therefore I wasn't sure what to expect. Last year I had ran 30:11 and in an ideal world I'd love to have gone sub 30. The ultimate aim for all races is to go sub 6 minute per mile average for all races up to half marathon (which I've only done once at East Park 4 in 2015) but with the greatest optimism in the world I'm nowhere near that and for this race I didn't think I was any where near 6 minute miling.
Onto the race and we were fortunate to have glorious weather, nice and sunny but cool enough for some decent running. For once I didn't go off like a train, due to being unsure of my form I let a few people I normally stick with go. The first mile was still covered in 5:58 but lots of summer league races the first mile is covered 10 to 20 seconds faster. For example in 2015 the first mile was 5:43. I also decided to not use my watch and just run on feel, something which I often do(I'd still record it but change the display to a menu screen and turn off alerts).
As the race progressed a good group of EHH runners came together, myself, Lee Alcock, Danny Wilson, Chris Hodgson, Mike Petersen and also a Beverley AC runner. Unsure of my form I decided to sit at the back and just follow any moves. The group mainly stayed together with just Mike being dropped somewhere between 2 and 3 miles.
After 3 miles Lee made a move to breakaway which I tracked allowing him to take the lead. Chris came with us just a little way behind. The 3 of us was working hard almost in single file. We had dropped the Beverley AC runner and Danny.
Coming into the finish Lee had a couple of metres gap and Chris was approximately 1 metre behind me. I should know better than to let Lee have any kind of gap as he comfortably beat me to the finish. More of a disappointment is to be out sprinted by Chris. However I finished in 30:27 for 23rd place out of 235 runners, just 13 seconds slower than 2015 when I had been marathon training. This year though I feel my race was much better paced, for comparison here is the splits from 2016 and 2015:
2016
2015
5:58 /mi
5:43 /mi
6:09 /mi
6:01 /mi
6:07 /mi
6:09 /mi
6:06 /mi
6:11 /mi
6:01 /mi
6:10 /mi
Considering the indifferent start to the year I was ecstatic by this result and return to form. Now I just need to find that elusive sub 6.
My wife was also running and finished in 40:43, like me she was happy with her time which is pretty consistent with races of this distance.