Leeds Abbey Dash 10k

The Leeds Abbey Dash is one of those races that starts at 9:30am and means an early start.  My normal routine for a 9:30am start would be to get up at 6:30am, have a small bowl of cereal and a slice of toast with Jam to allow my breakfast time to settle before the race.

Matt Barnes had arranged to pick me up at 7:15am but I had a bit of a nightmare sleeping through my alarm and woke at 7:10am.  I’d had a really tough week at work with a lot of very late finishes so I guess it wasn’t a surprise I slept through!  I threw all of my gear together and Matt arrived as my toast popped up!  Half a slice of dry toast later and I dashed out of the door with two energy gels in my hand to take one hour before the race start!

It was a strange journey to the race with us driving through dense fog as we crossed the M62.  I expected it to lift as we entered Leeds but it didn’t and there was a very eerie feel to the place!  It was a bitterly cold morning and I warmed up with Matt with plenty of layers on.

Just before we headed across to the start, I made the decision to go with a combination of gloves and arm warmers with the vest, the first time the arm warmers had made an appearance since last winter!  

Although I’d had a tough week at work and was fatigued, it had forced me to back off the training which meant my legs felt quite sprightly even if the rest of my body didn’t feel quite so alert.  I thought I had gone off quite conservatively being back in around 30^th place through the first mile, so it was a surprise to see 4:45 on the clock.  I was feeling good and had found a nice rhythm early on.  I was still in contact with the leaders but that was about to change as Jonny Mellor and Nick McCormick stepped things up and split the large pack apart.

I found myself in a small group, and we worked well together, exchanging the lead to help keep the pace rolling.  Our pace remained fairly consistent and despite the early morning issues, I was feeling the best I’d felt in a race for some time and always felt like I was shifting along.  We were picking off a few from the large group that had been on sub 30min schedule behind Mellor, McCormick and Taylor.  One of Shettleston’s Eritreans (who later dropped out), the in-form Ben Livesey and Nick Swinburn. 

At 9km, I was still in a group with Swinburn, Philip Hoole and Russ Best and we were getting closer and closer to Aaron Scott and Alex Hains.  The last km is a bit of a nasty drag and we stopped making inroads and started to race it out.  Best had a go, then I had a go, then Swinburn and then Best again.  Swinburn’s effort seemed to have finished him and I followed Best through to the line, as he punched the air in celebration of a big PB.  Swinburn caught me by surprise with a last gasp dash for the line but I was more than happy with my fastest 10k of 2011.  A small step forward and as the work situation starts to settle I should start to see more significant progress in the new year.