Report from Howard Jeffrey

The kindly weather gods were out this morning and kept it cool, windless and sunny. Perfect. My target today was to do the 10K at twice the speed of my recent best 5k time plus 1 minute which would be adequate progress within my long term plan. That would require a finish time of 51.14. Speaking to Verity on the start line her, goal was the same calculation which would have been around 49.30 which I am pleased to see she smashed. There were 3 starting pens (in name only) because the field was quite large with 2644 finishers. I was in the second ‘pen’, around the middle and it still took 1.5 minutes to get to the timing chip mat after the race had started. The roads were closed, so there was enough room to get straight into a good sustainable pace. Often hard to know what that really is, until you get to the end but it turned out it was, as each kilometre mark I passed at pretty much the same rate.

It is basically a straight road from Dewsbury, slightly uphill towards Batley, turn at a cone and then the reverse back to the finish. My measure of success in a race, is I perform as well as I can on the day because that is all you can do, irrespective of target and actual times. The cool air helped make the breathing good and the legs felt OK. The perceived effort was high, from start to finish. I couldn’t see anyone to chase or keep in front of so I did my own thing and crossed the line in a chip time of 51.19. The 5 second difference is within an acceptable margin of error, so pleased enough. Icing on the cake was a free snood at the end.

The race was won by Joe Sagar of Leeds City in 30.06, First lady, Heather Townsend, also of Leeds City 44th in 33.24. Good to see Jamil Parapia back at the club and 1st MV45, 30th in 32.51. Other Otley AC’s, Peter Crowder 519, in 40.14, Verity Glover, 1123, in 46.53. Howard Jeffrey 1439, in 51.19, Nicola Swann, 1735 in 54.47, Josh Whitely, 2162 in 59.46.

Results here: racebest.com/results/kwr59