As you know, I love my coaching and pacing at races, but occasionally, I do have to race for myself 😉
Pacing is great—I get to see people achieve goals and PBs, I enjoy a good chat, and usually, the people I’m pacing don’t want to chat back, so I get carte blanche on the conversation! Plus, it’s typically at a comfortable pace for me. So, while there’s the pressure of making sure I hit the target, it’s a bit of a cop-out—I don’t have to feel the pain!
The last 12 months have been challenging with a couple of injuries, making my own training a bit stop-start. However, after getting the all-clear from my MRI, I entered both the Cheadle 5 and Crewe 10k to gauge where my fitness levels were.
Race Day!
I’ve been gradually increasing my mileage and throwing in the occasional quicker run with my son and on the treadmill. As I always tell my clients and running colleagues: be sensible when returning from injury and build up slowly. With that in mind, I set what I thought was a slightly challenging but achievable target—if both body and mind held up for the 5 miles.
Now, I’ll tell you the target. Some might find it fast; others might consider it a Sunday slow run. But that’s the thing with running—very few of us are out to win a race. The goal is personal, and no one else’s. Although we often think everyone is watching and judging, 99.999% of people either don’t care or genuinely want us to do well. As for the rest—well, tough!
My target was 37:30, aiming for an average pace of 7:30 min/mile. We’d heard the course was quite hilly—some said it was the reverse of Cheadle 4, which has a big up and a big down. On the drive over, there was plenty of talk: about how cold it was, how hilly the course might be, how long it had been since we last raced, how we maybe ran too fast yesterday…typical runners, making excuses before even setting off!
Mind you—it was flippin’ cold!
There wasn’t a huge turnout of Bats at Cheadle—just nine of us. With it being an NSRRA race and so close to marathon season, the sensible ones had opted to stay home.
The race starts at the school, where we usually park for Cheadle 4. At 10 a.m., we set off down to the main road (opposite the Cheadle 4 field) before turning left into the town centre. We wound around the back of the High Street, came up by the church, and veered left toward Blythe Bridge. The first mile was pretty much all uphill—not as brutal as Washdale Lane, but still an incline. When I hit the 1-mile marker and saw 7:25 on my watch, I was happy. I don’t tend to check my watch when I’m racing for myself, so being on pace was reassuring.
A bit more climbing followed before a nice, fast downhill stretch for about half a mile. Then, we took two left turns and started another climb toward mile 2. This time, my watch read 6:57—oops! But with the earlier downhill, I let it slide. I reminded myself to rein it in but was pleased I felt good—working hard, but good!
Mile 3 had a few more ups and downs—undulating rather than hilly. I felt in control and thought it was more downhill than up (turns out, I was a bit too comfortable—another oops, 6:55). At this point, I wasn’t exactly sure where we were, but suddenly, we hit Tean Road, climbing a sneaky little hill as we turned toward home. The mile 4 marker arrived—7:05. Not exactly sticking to the plan!
Now, this was where the course met Cheadle 4. But while the first mile of Cheadle 4 goes slightly downhill to Freehay Bank, today, we were running it in reverse—so, slightly uphill back to the playing field and then left up to the school.
The incline wasn’t the issue, though. It was the bitter, strong headwind blasting us for the final stretch! I doubt anyone enjoyed that last mile (aside from the usual post-race satisfaction). Knowing I was ahead of my target, I didn’t push for a sprint finish—just kept it steady across the line.
Final time: 35:32 (average 7:05 min/mile).
For those I’ve paced this year—you know I tend to push you a little faster than you think you’re capable of. Well…guess what? I underestimated myself too. Maybe the next target needs to be a bit more ambitious (gulp).
Post-race, I grabbed some water and a couple of bags of Haribo (dodgy stuff) before jogging back along the course with the Chairman (dodgy bloke) to cheer on the rest of the Bats.
As always, we gathered up, congratulated each other, and then hopped in the car back to Stone.
Big shoutout to Robin for being the first Bat back and Sally for first lady Bat! Well done to Chris W, Kevin, Carole, Phil, Penny, and Chris B for battling through the bitter spring morning.
Bring on Crewe 10k! What do you think—7:25s?