Cranleigh 10k Race Report - Possible DNF?

Nearly double the distance of any of my Juneathon runs on an unknown course in an unknown village and a Saturday night spent doing stretches as my legs seem to have tightened up completely after 3 days of no running or cycling! Things weren't looking good were they.

I had high hopes for this race though. It gets tremendous reviews for pretty much everything and to be honest, I was impressed with the whole thing. Great marshalling, lovely course (with plenty of tree cover), 2 drink stops (yep count 'em 2, not the standard 1 you usually get) and plenty of parking and toilets.

So my race, it didn't start well with something giving me tremendous stomach cramps from about 9.45am onwards. Really painful and came about every 10 minutes. I nearly pulled out but decided to wait until the start and see how I felt. The cramps came back pretty much every 10 minutes. I went for a little jog across the field to see what that did and certainly didn't make it worse so I continued to hang around. At 2 minutes to 11am, they asked everyone to assemble in the predicted time pens so currently going through yet another pain, I hung around right at the back debating what to do. I wanted to do this race that much that in the end, I went to the start and set off hoping that it would be OK and if not, a marshall would be able to help.

Early pace was my recent 5km pace which I knew was NOT going to be kept up the whole way but the first 4km are along a dismantled railway track which is flat, tree lined and relatively cool. It was a good start. The 2 guys I'd decided to use as pacers started moving off after around 3km and I dropped back and ran on my own for a couple of km.

At around 5km with a bit of open ground and the sunshine beating down, I caught a guy and slowly passed him. He was very heavy footed so at times, all I could hear was his footsteps. However, we then proceeded to stay very close to each other for the rest of the race and neither of us getting more than 10/15m in front of the other. Perfect. I had my paceman until the end of the race. There were slight inclines plus no shade between 7 and 8.5km and I noticed that my pace had dropped so I had to mentally tell myself to push harder. In the end, this section cost me.

I came in at 51:54. 17 seconds off a PB and knowing exactly where I'd lost the time. I also can in about a yard behind my nominated paceman and as I crossed the line I thanked him for giving me the pace and therefore helping me. He turned round, and said with a sly grin, 'No problem but thank the girl up there' as he pointed ahead 'I just aimed for her'. I finished 82nd out of 196 runners and I can't wait until next year. I'll be back. This course owes me 17 seconds!