Carter Plod...
Language student and Wallsend Harrier Tony Carter sends this report. He's spending the winter studying in Austria and recently returned to the UK.
On 4th February, I travelled back to the UK for the University Cross Country race. This was on Saturday (6th) at Stirling, Scotland and I was due to represent Northumbria University.
The course was 11.1 k long, and in many ways is comparable to the St. Helens course that was recently home to the Northern Cross Country Champs. The course has a few short climbs, some good flat firm bits, and some muddy bits - a typical course but perhaps not as bad as St. Helens in 2009! One of the worst parts was just before a short but sharp hill which absolutely destroyed the pace and made the hill much harder.
The race itself was a funny one on my part, with nothing to celebrate - unlike some of the events that I'd entered while studying here in Austria.
With the race off, I just somehow knew something wasn't quite right and soon my thoughts were off the race itself and I was thinking about training for other upcoming races, a bad mistake on my part. Running around, I got settled into a pace but come the second lap my legs and mind just switched off and I found myself being overtaken by tens of runners, which didn't even bother me - another error again. The third lap I managed to pick the pace up but burned myself out coming to the end of the race.
So there it was, a race which I didn't feel pleased or sad about, but confused. I finished 92nd and I knew I didn't do as well as I could, but when I looked at what my time for the course - 39mins 47secs - I thought something was wrong, as I knew from constantly running kilometres in Austria that my time for 10km would be round 36mins.
I eventually worked out that my km splits averaged 3.35 which is 5.46 miles, which makes out 35.50 for 10k. After some reflection, I realised that because of lack of cross country racing that it was at least a half decent race judging from the splits, and the splits are equal to what I'm wanting for the first few half marathons I will be running come March onwards.
Anyway I enjoyed being back in the UK even if it was for a short time and spending time with some of the university athletics team. The most important thing is that we beat our rivals Newcastle University in the team points.
I will be back for the English National Cross Countries travelling down with the club, but going straight to Stansted after the race to go back to Austria. I will then be racing in various countries round the continent.
Till the Nationals folks, farewell.
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