LCL Parliament Hill

On Wednesday, I did the London Cross Country League (LCL) race at Parliament Hill.  I hadn't done anything resembling cross country since I was at Primary School and to say I'd forgotten it's joys is an understatement.  I wasn't feeling great going in to the race, as I sit here typing this I have a dose of man flu that has never before been survived, but I still thought it'd be good training and I needed to go for a run that day anyway.

Warming up, I jogged half a lap and knew I was in for a tough time.  Slippery underfoot, an ever present gradient of some sort and a field of far more experience X-Country runners meant just finishing in a respectable time became the goal of the day.  The course was a 2.5mile loop which the men did twice, so a total of around 5miles.  Given my 10km pace is around 6:20min/mile, I thought something approaching 7min/miles would be achievable, given the course and how I was feeling.

The first lap was misery.  Unfortunately, my HR belt died on Monday so I have no HR data from the run, but it must have been seriously high.  It felt like threshold and above the whole time.  I thought I wanted to quit.  I hated the mud.  I questioned why on earth I was doing this to myself.

The second lap was worse.

Now I just wanted it to be over.  I thought about just jogging it in, but I couldn't do it.  I kept telling myself the last little rise was the one before the dip to the finish line.  Eventually, it was.  I came bumbling down that last hill, grateful for it to be over.  Then I heard it.  Someone was sat just behind me, waiting for their chance to out-sprint me at the finish and steal a precious place back.  Well, I'm not going to lie, I didn't like that idea.  If I wasn't competitive, I wouldn't be in sport.  So I waited until I heard him slightly pick up his cadence, then went for it.  He tried to keep with me, but I have a decent finishing kick on me and he was history.  I think he vomited.

Then I vomited.

Official time was bang on 35:00 giving me average mile splits of 7min/miles.

In the middle is me.  Pain face on.

Cross-country is awesome.  There's no doubt, it's way outside my training and my abilities at the minute.  I've just not trained for that style of running.  But that's not going to stop me turning up each week to get covered in mud.  I think it'll bring my running strength on no end - something I perhaps lack.  It's also an excellent hard run once a fortnight, in race conditions.  Something I know I lacked experience of last winter.  So I'll be back to try again.  The courses apparently get easier from now on, which is just fine by me.

Lesson learnt:

• Pacing.  I should have listened to a friend who said that the good guys take the first lap as a tempo run, then nail the second lap.  The adrenaline got to me and I did it the other way around.
• My Salomon Speedcross' were awesome.  I almost didn't wear them, but the grip they provide is just biblical and I was very grateful for it.
• Garmin in the back pocket was a great call - I can't remember the last time I did a stand alone running race at 7min/miles and I think I would have found it demoralising to have seen it mid-race.

Garmin was messed around a bit by all the tree cover I guess and only recorded 4.85miles.