12:58...

Yesterday saw us make the long journey down to Coventry for the King Henry VIII Cross Country Relays held in War Memorial Park. Rather than your average school relays, these are the national stage of school relays and this was shown by the 40 teams of 6 in the boys relay alone. Having finished 17th last year, we hoped to use the experience gained from then to make a vast improvement this year.
Billy Pinder brought the team home in 2nd in a brilliant time of 12.09 after the first leg. Billy really is on fire at the minute and his great performance got the team's hopes up immediatley. I was running leg 5 of 6, contra to last year where I ran the 1st leg. Bearing this in mind I knew it would be much tougher pacing it this year as the likelihood was I would be trying to catch/hold off runners rather than beat them (like last year on the first leg where it is an outright race!) It seemed an eternity until I finally got to go and taking over from Faisil Ismail with the team in 5th place, I was off. I set off quickly knowing there was a runner breathing down my neck and Manchester G.S. weren't too far ahead.
The wooded area was pretty chewed up by the time I ran my leg (much more so than when we walked it pre race) and so it was hard going, but I definitley felt to be reeling in the runners ahead and leaving those behind for dead. Had I gone too fast? Yes. I had a very strong first 2/3 of the race but in the final 3rd of the punishing fast 2.4 mile course I had to hang on in there and the Manchester G.S. runner was beginning to pull away again. I had moved us into a comfortable 4th by this stage but flagging, I knew there was no way I was going to catch 3rd before the handover. Battling on I was passed by a St. Anselms runner who went on to do 11.55! This made me feel as though all the hard work had been undone. Still, taking over in 5th and handing over in 5th was fairly respectable.
The team lost another place on the last leg to Sedbergh, leaving us in 6th position. Not a bad effort and a considerable improvement on last year! Hopefully next year we will be capable of bringing some silverware home!
My time of 12.58 was some 29 seconds quicker than last year in worse conditions and on a much slower leg. I was reasonably happy but felt as though had I paced it better, I could have done a time more similar to that of the M.G.S runner (12:41). All the same, a good day out and all good experience for next year!