After a good week's training last week I felt ready for the second cross country event of the season on Sunday. The weather was a very pleasant 8 degrees C with sunshine.
After the normal warm-ups I was happily making my way over to the start area when a club-mate politely informed me that my vest was on back-to-front! Oops! This would have been no big deal to fix except I had to unpin my number and pin it on again with only a few minutes before the start of the race.
I only managed to pin the number on at the top when the gun went and I had to start at the back. Oh dear! That is a lesson learnt there!
Starting at the back is fun as you do a lot of overtaking but it does mean that in the narrow sections you get stuck behind slower runners. Because of this the first mile of the two mile lap was done in about 7:30 minutes whereas on the next two laps I did it in 7 minutes.
After a very wet couple of weeks the course was extremely muddy and many stretches were pure mud baths but this is part of the fun of winter cross country! The second mile also contained a very steep hill but thankfully it didn't seem to last too long.
I gradually worked my way through the field, overtaking people on the flat stretches and eventually worked my way up into the top half of the field. However due to my slow start I was only the eighth placed runner in my club in a time of just under 46 minutes.
The next cross county event clashes with a race I am doing so I have two months now until my next one. In this race I am going to attach myself to a club runner who has been finishing a minute ahead of me and see what I can do.
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