Manchester Relays-Race Report

Pre-Race

Birmingham Universiy Athletics Team are invading the north tomorrow for the Manchester relays, and like last year we'll probably take 100's of runners. If I remember correctly it's a fairly flat course around fields, so if it's dry it might be quite fast. This is good because I'm doing one leg and Steve wants me to run it hard then do an easy half an hour straight after. It's a low key race so good to use as training and running one leg hard will be a good sharpener for the road relays next week. Seeing as the race is being used as training I'm not easing down for it, so it's just like a normal training week for me, except I'm doing my Saturday session in Manchester. I might switch on the Garmin and use to monitor my pace as I don't want to go there and just run around at any old speed and do enough for the team, as it is training I want to run at pace. But I might just not use it and sprint off, hold on for dear life then jog through the line with legs full of lactic. I still don't know what team or leg I am but if one of my blogs is anything to go by I think Gundo said I was 4th legs for the B's!

Race Report

Waking up Saturday I did feel a bit sore as I had done my first gym session for a while two days before. Even so, I was just going there to run a hard leg, then go home, so I wasn't too fussed about the pain. I warmed up and the soreness disappeared and I felt quite good. I was on third leg for the A team and Wilko was nice enough to bring the team home in 1st place after his second leg effort. I just set off hard and tried to keep the stride long and maintain an intense rythm. That I did and the legs felt really good during the leg. Towards the end the chest started getting heavy but I still managed to pick up the pace a bit and cross the line in 11:08. It wasn't the fastest leg of the day or fastest Birmingham athlete but I was pleased that I felt a lot better than the Southern, despite having two heavy training days prior to the race. Unfortunately we just missed out on the win which is a shame, but hey, there is still plenty of time to strengthen the team before BUCS.