So Leeds Abbey Dash
Up early to drive to Leeds - worried about getting lost or the roads being closed - so I arrived very early. Fortunately I was parking at RunnyBunny's office, so I had somewhere warm to wait and meet friends.
Eventually I met up with RB, XB, Ailsa, Jars and MrJars, Elephant Feet and Daffy.
Ailsa, Daffy and I started at the back and planned to plod round together.
It didn't start well when the paramedics and police bikes passed us within minutes of the start, releasing the traffic into our lane of the dual carriageway. This meant moving onto the pavement and lots of fumes - ugh.
Next hazard was being ignored by the marshals, who stood on the central reservation, watched us waiting to cross and then told us we didn't need to - wasted a minute or so there.
This is an out and back course so soon (about 3km) the front runners were coming back!
I thing this made me speed up because I drew away from Ailsa and Daffy (sorry pals). I was plodding ok and felt I had a demon to deal with - missed the last two races and messed up the two before that. So I didn't wait for them. (I do feel guilty about that but there were two of them.)
Saw Tracey Morris and BarnsleyRunner running well the other way and soon all the forum friends were coming back too.
Encouragement from fast peeps kept me going and soon I was at the Abbey and the turn round.
My target time was 85 minutes - predicted by fetcheveryone, based on training times. I seemed to be keeping to 8.5 minute kms so it was looking good, and at this point I remembered Trinity's tactic in ultras (ok I KNOW this isn't an ultra) - you run your mile (or in this case km) and if you arrive ahead of time you allow yourself to walk to the end of the time.
So I used this tactic on the return half. I gradually caught up with a few stragglers which is a good morale booster. I was then overtaken by faster bloke whose car had broken down!
Coming back into the city there was a nasty little hill just before the end. Then I could see the town hall and the finish!
Made it in 1:23:24 on the Garmin so very pleased. A pb of course as it was my first
