South Leeds 5 Mile Road Race

Rather than thrash out some mile reps on the grass track at the back of my house, I decided to do the 5 mile run at south Leeds. It was a spur of the moment thing, as I thought I could treat it as speed training - and I always find one rep easier to count than five! I wasn't preparing for this run so there was no tappering or easing off. With this weeks milage of approximately 50 miles, including some fast tempo runs, there wasn't a feeling of rareing to go at the start.

There was quite a turnout for the run, and I had checked out the results from last years race, with the winner coming in at around 29 minutes - there was a possibility of a top five place.

To those who know the area, the run made it's way from the John Charles stadium to the Town Street entrance to Middleton park, and then back through Middleton woods, and then back round again - making 2 laps altogether, finishing in the stadium(on the track). The conditions can be described as cool and windy, with a severe wind at the top of the hill.

Among the recognised runners was Tim Midgeley from Bingley, Craig Keedy from St Theresas, Keith Magee from our club(Spen).

I set of at a conservative pace today and hoped to catch runners up who were fading on the second lap. This plan seemed to work and I managed to catch and overtake some runners who set off too fast or run out of steam.

I achieved a 9th place overall and 2nd vet 40 - not a bad reward and a reasonable workout.

Finishing time approximately 29-18.

This was the first race I had done wearing the new orthotics and everthing seemed to be fine i.e no knee pain or blisters.