There really aren’t many races in January, but fortunately this one was in about the right spot to have recovered from the Liverbird, and give me a couple weeks recovery time before the Mad Dog. The slight downside was it was a three hour drive to get there, so after a 0445 alarm and a long slog up the M6, I was stood yawning on the start line wondering if I could even stay awake long enough to finish the race never mind run it. 

The race was laps of a service road around the inside of the race course, eight if you were doing the half marathon, 16 for the full, and 19 for the 50k. That meant the usual chaos in terms of never really knowing who you were running against, or where you were in relation to anyone else. 

The plan was to run under four hours, which was hugely optimistic given my current fitness. I’ve not run more than 10k at 4:45 pace in months, and sub four would mean running quicker than a 3:20 marathon (and carrying on), something I’ve not done since October. But I figured I’d give it a go and just see what happened. 

I got quite excited at the start, running the first partial lap at 4:08/km pace, but quickly settled into 4:30s with the wind and about 4:40 against. I felt pretty good for 35km, and although nobody seemed especially talkative I had a few little chats with people along the way. A handful of people had passed me by this point, but I didn’t know which distance they were racing, so I just keep on trying to hit my splits, stopping now and again to fill my handheld or scoff a gel.

I had a bit of a wobble at 35km, another 15km seemed an awfully long way to go, but I got a bit of a second wind just after that and started to feel pretty good. I was slowing, but not a lot, and my average pace was still on track for sub 4 as I passed the marathon distance in 3:19. Eight km might’ve felt like a long way to go, but three laps somehow didn’t, and although I was having to work a little harder for it,  was still managing to keep under my 4:45 goal pace.

All of a sudden I was on the last lap, with that amazing feeling of knowing it was nearly over and I was going to make it without blowing up. I crossed the line, checked my watch, and was so happy to see it say 3:57! I said a few (happy) swear words, caught my breath a bit, and asked the chap on the line where I’d come – I couldn’t believe it when he told me I’d won! The rest is a bit of a blur, I took my chip back, got a printout of my lap times (and then another one as it had miscounted me when I’d stopped for gels and water at one point), and picked up my trophy from Mel, one of the organisers.

I went back over to the finish to clap some more people back in, but quickly got really cold, so I said goodbye to everyone and started the long, slow, crampy and foggy drive home.

I can’t believe I won my first race of the year, and with a massive PB. It was about an hour and twenty minutes faster than my last 50k, although that was London a few years ago so it probably doesn’t count. The NE Marathon club are ace, this was the second race of theirs I’ve done (after Hamsterley Forest a couple of years ago), and it was really good. Cheap, no frills, but everything you need for a good race – apart from being about an hour too far away!

It was two years since I’d done this New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day double, and I was hoping for a decent improvement. Last time I just missed out on my goal of running both under four hours, but this time I was determined to make that with a lot to spare.

The best thing about the race is the format, four out and backs means you get to see everyone loads which is really encouraging – especially as I think I knew about a third of the people there from somewhere or other. What was even cooler this time was that my brother Dan was running it as his first double, and although we didn’t run together,we still saw each other a few times along the way.

Overall, not an awful lot happened over the two days. The weather was unseasonably good, a bit chilly and breezy, but nothing like as bad as it could have been. The first day went by in nice easy even splits, and I managed to not finish like my ass was on fire, coasting in to a 3:33. Dan was a little way behind, just under four hours. 

We spent the next few hours mostly eating, and then it was off to do it again for day two.

I felt like shit on the start line, but once I got going I felt surprisingly chipper. I was running at the same pace as day 1, and figured I’d just keep that up as long as I could and see what happened. That was a pretty good plan for the first ten miles, but I had to dig in a bit after that to keep the same pace. The rest was kind of a blur, I was pretty much on autopilot, nodding and smiling at the same people as we crossed paths, squirting down a gel now and again, and just getting on with things.

All of a sudden I was on the last leg back to the finish and I felt pretty good, and for a while I gave it some welly thinking I could get under 3:30. Then I realised I wouldn’t make it with about 500m to go and just eased off coasting to a 3:31. Faster than day 1 was a great result though, and Dan was about ten mins quicker on day two as well which was ace.

Overall it was a PB for back to backs by about an hour which was neat – especially as I hadn’t really smashed myself up too badly for it.

This race is stupid, I’ve no idea why I did it again, but I did. Met and ran with some friends (half the RDB was there) which was cool, slipped in the car park on ice and smashed my knee and elbow which wasn’t cool, and ran my 28 miles or so in four hours which was meh and went home.