Percy Pud 10km 2011

I was up bright and early this morning, so that I could leave the house at 7.40am to make the trip to Loxley near Sheffield for the 2011 Percy Pud 10km road race.
It was whilst I was eating my porridge that I checked the BBC weather forecast and was told that it would be overcast and dry.

Imagine our surprise then, when we rocked up in Sheffield at just before 9 to find it was wet, windy and very very cold ! To be honest though, because I've had some foot problems this week, I was happy just to be racing, so it was a case of bring it on, although for the spectators, it was highly unpleasant !

Steel City Striders put on the event, and their details can be found here : http://www.steelcitystriders.co.uk/ - and I knew from last year it is a well organised event, with decent facilities and a very fast course. Last year the entrant numbers had suffered, as the event had to be put back a week due to the heavy snow - this year though there was a full turn out and 1500 people turned up. Whilst Heidi made her way strategically to the coffee shop at the Garden Centre, I tried to seed myself amongst the starters so that I could get away without too many problems ( yeah right !), and waited for the klaxon to sound, which it duly did at 9.30 and we were off !

The first couple of kilometres are rolling and once I had managed to get round the slow starters, and then get off the footpath, I managed to settle at around 7.15m/m which was some going due to the wind and the rain which was blowing straight into us. After a couple of kilometres the route hangs a lefty and takes you over the Damflask reservoir. There was a cross wind here and this affected the pace to around 7.30m/m for the third kilometre. The 4th and 5th kilometres were no joke because of the headwind and it was a real grind to the turnaround point at Lower Bradfield, and then guess what ?

Backwind....whoo hoo !!!
The lack of training this week showed, but because of the backwind between kilometres 6 and 7, all failings were masked and the steady 7.35m/m pace kept up. On this section I managed to get overtaken by a man in a bright pink tutu, which was an improvement over last year, when a man pushing a buggy did me on the same stretch ! I also had 'heavy breathing woman' on my shoulder (HBW) which was starting to get annoying until she finally remembered that she was faster than me and loped a further 10 metres up the road.

Finally, some peace and quiet I thought, until I caught 'really heavily wheezing bloke' (RHWB!) for the last two kilometres and he managed to stay around 10 metres behind me. He was making a proper racket and at one point another runner asked him if he was OK, but thankfully no need for the crash cart because the guy replied that he felt fine ! As we passed into the final kilometre he faded away, and I managed to get on someones shoulder, which is my preferred tactic, and this chap paced it perfectly for the run in. I crossed the line in 47.44 which was a new PB by a great 30 seconds !

We were given a large Xmas pudding each as a memento, which is now two Xmas puds I'll have to eat this year - my life is full of such dilemnas !! Next up is the Stockport 10 mile race next Sunday morning...