A horrible day at Silverstone yesterday. To start with, freezing cold winds that managed to work their way through every layer I had on and reach bits that they certainly shouldn’t have been reaching, but no rain at least. There were people running in shorts and t-shirts – I have no idea how they managed it. It was so cold I didn’t even break a sweat on the whole run, though perhaps that was because of the pace I was running. And that was with my fleece, long johns and woolly hat on.
I’d expected a few leisurely laps of the track with plenty of space around me but, instead, there were nearly 10,000 people running through the paddocks and the farms (I have no idea what they were doing on a race track) and down dirt paths strewn with stones with only the beginning and end parts actually on the track.
Still, it was an absolute blast with loads of people there to clap and cheer, good natured marshalls making sure no-one took a short-cut and lovely people handing out water and lucozade every so often (but sadly, no-one offering rides on Segways).
My time? Not a great one. I did a couple of miles at around 9 minute pace and a bunch a bit slower. I proved that I can still keep going though and that, despite all the shin problems, I can cover the distance. I have a month to get my speed training ready ahead of the marathon. I’m still guessing that 5 hours or so is going to be the target – more than an hour slower than the last one I ran. Ugh. That’s a lot of time to be running. I hope it gets a bit warmer.