Every year I forget how ridiculously hard the first race is, but it's always a good kick up the bum to get down to proper winter training and build the volume! Saturday 22nd October was a fairly late start to my XC season, but it was the earliest I felt ready to race after my end of season break. It was conveniently the first race in the Manchester XC League and my first outing in an Altrincham vest!
It was a gorgeous day in Heaton Park and I was looking forward to starting my season and having a nice run out!
I started off the race in the top 20, and then almost lost a shoe right at the bottom of the first hill, stopped to tie my laces and lost a lot of places - I then gradually worked my way back through. Luckily it was a long race, but I never felt like I quite got back to where I should have been. After the 1st lap my spikes started to rub really badly and I was running for the last half of the race with my feet shoved forwards in my spikes to limit the damage.
If I'd been sensible I would have stopped running.
But I'm not sensible - so I finished with my spikes full of blood.
I had washed them at the end of the season, but the mud from Alton Towers at the 2011 National XC Champs must have dried in permanently!
It's a lovely course with rolling park land and woods, but has a killer hill coming up to the finish - I definitely need to do some more hill training.
Overall I was pleased to get the first race done, pleased with how I worked through the field, but disappointed with some pretty basic errors I made in not tying my shoes properly and then wearing spikes that destroyed my feet. I couldn't run for days after and was wearing flip flops to work for a week!
Above: Me (29th), Lora (26th) and Laura (71st) looking very happy in the sunshine pre-race!
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