Shut up or I'll nail your other foot to the floor.
This is largely the story of the Raceways Half Marathon, held at the ever-enticing Long Marston Airfield. I'd picked it to be a convenient (Saturday), easy-to-pace (four laps of 5k plus a twiddle) race to test my Hadd training to this point. Although, as befits an airfield, it was flat, it is also, as befits an airfield, open and exposed to the elements...and by my calculations, the course contains 21 180 degree dead turns in 21k.
I was hoping for a PB (anything under 1:39:48 would be fine) but it was not to be. The ever-strengthening wind in the home straight put paid to that; I've also managed to hurt my Achilles, which probably cost me a bit of forward momentum in the closing stages and a couple of days of icing/heating/elevating to boot. I may also not quite be fit enough, though this race is 8 weeks earlier in the year than my PB effort, so I may yet be able to gain 3 sec/mile/week and be (slightly) better than I used to be.
Even putting a hat on this race and calling it Erwin wouldn't make it interesting, but there is plenty of good news to take away; I averaged a heart rate of 169 (84.5% of my max) for 1:43:58 and remained below my lactate threshold. Hadd training is obviously working and my lungs are back to where they were before the DVE/PE incident. I just need to fix my Achilles and get back to it!
