Bassingham Bash 5 miles

Its been a busy year, and yesterdays Bassingham Bash 5 mile road race was all about getting a little bit faster over a little longer distance as I build myself up to some hopefully faster 10k races over the Autumn period.

Bassingham is a village just five miles or so outside of Lincoln and this race was being held as part of a village Gala that was taking place in the afternoon - in fact the start of the race was to be at 2.30pm !

When I arrived, there was a brass band playing, a car boot sale in full swing and even some Morris dancing taking place. For such a low key race, there was representation from most of my clubs including UK Netrunner, Lincoln Wellington AC, and Lincoln Tri Club.

My plan for the race was to hold a 7.45 m/m pace - no mean feat having ridden 40 miles out to Upton chippy on the previous evenings club run ! I felt a bit tired, but buoyed by recent performances (and a caffeine gel) I felt I had a good chance of maintaining the target average as I lined up with 50 or 60 other runners for the start.

It went a little like this....

Mile one - 7.24 - A loop around the village and a bit giddy as I didn't really know how I was going until the first mile split flashed up.
Mile two - 7.27 - I was blowing a bit as we headed out into the fens and I concentrated on trying to keep my breathing under control and heading along the shortest line as possible.
Mile three - 7.41 - Struggling a bit now and fully focused on not dropping away from the lady from Wellies that I was now using for pacing.
Mile four - 8.01 - Yep, average pace dropping rapidly, and really hurting to keep this up. Steyed with my pacer but hanging out of my arse - gald to see the mile 4 marker in the verge and my overall pace showing as 7.42 m/m which was a safety gap of just 3 seconds.
Mile five - 8.05 - Back into Bassingham, and trying to keep things going until the finish. Mile 5 definitely a little easier than mile 4, although I was about done by the time I got back onto the sports field and passed the finish line.

First five miler and therefore a new personal best, cheers !