The South Cheshire 20 gave me an excellent opportunity to check out how my training was coming and do a ‘dry run’ of my pre-race preparation, if I’m honest it was a welcome break from constantly training too!
I woke on race day to a gorgeous blue sky and a bit of a chill in the air, my favourite conditions! Standing on the start with a field of a couple of hundred runners I was struck by how many folks were wearing club vest. Meanwhile I decided to check my shoelaces during the race briefing, next thing I knew we were getting a countdown, I don’t think I’ve ever tied a shoelace so fast! I set off at a decent place and very soon found my rhythm, once we hit Snapes Lane (a road I spend a lot of time training on) I was able to really push passing quite a few runners. At about 15k we hit Heighley Lane, again I’d run this in training so knew what to expect and combined with my recent training on Mow Cop I was really able to push the pace.
From that point on I was really in the zone and the rest of the race pretty faded into a blur, the only things standing out were some of the marshalls, first off being a mate of mine who told me what a great pace I was doing and then 2 marshalls who were quite literally yelling and screaming their support! Near the finish I passed a runner from Trentham who tried to come back at me, I really went for it sprinting for the finish, determined not to let him passed, sure I could hear his footsteps at my shoulder. When I saw the photo’s the next day I realised he was quite far off in the distance, but it was great to know I could manage a sprint finish and achieve a new PB of 2:36:19 for 20 miles.
For more information visit the South Cheshire 20 website.
Steve F.