"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own" Sri Chinmoy
Cheerfulness 2 Mile Race - Sri Chinmoy Virtual Grand Prix - Dec 2022 - Filton
Ah, virtual racing, those were the days! Well I did get fond of it in lockdown, as you pretty much had no choice but to embrace whatever was on offer and learn to love it, but I was so glad to get back to real racing when the time came. I stepped back into the virtual race world this time because Suswara told me he had signed up for our virtual Grand Prix series across Christmas 2022 / New Year 2023, as part of his long march back from injury. I could see he was taking great strides (in both senses) and I knew I had to keep up the speedwork in preparation for Christmas Trip races in January/February, so I got myself entered for the December 26 race, entitled "Cheerfulness".
Back in the peak covid times I tried several 2-mile courses, starting with Aztec West (no tight bends, but a slight slope), Hatchet Road (again a nice smooth course but kicks up at the turnaround), Bitton (perfectly flat but requires a 180 turn around an imaginary cone) and finally Horizon 38. That last one is a business park on the A38, with a roughly square course of around 900m and a convenient start line roughly one mile from my house. It even has a Costa Coffee across the road so it ticks all the boxes! So for this return to virtual running, I headed up there in the dark, via the long way round on Gypsy Patch Lane, to bring me to the start line with 2.5 miles of jogging and strides in my legs. Daylight was just breaking, the clouds dispersing over the old runway of Filton Airfield and the overhead electrics newly installed on the railway outlined against the horizon.
Horizon 38 is usually pretty deserted at the weekend (and this time it was a Christmas eve and a Saturday) but there was one guy parked right on my imaginary start line, trying to keep warm in his car. Suswara had told me there was a now a security bloke there, who had challenged him about why he was running up and down the same roads in the business park on the previous weekend, so perhaps that's why he ignored me doing my strides, taking off my fleece hoodie to hang it in the tree then pausing in silence ready for my solo start.
I went off too fast, as you do, then settled into a rhythm by the time I'd taken the first bend. A week ago I had run an intense fell race and my quads still felt it, so I was telling myself not to expect too much and just to run hard but not right to the limit. I felt like I had done the first couple of hundred metres at my absolute max pace and then slowed to something more sane! As I came up to the right angle bend on a slight downslope on to Gypsy Patch lane I was happy to see liquid puddles (meaning there was no ice) and I had to take the bend very wide to stay well balanced. I realised then I was going quick by my standards. Further round the loop my watch flashed up my half mile time at around 3.02. Surely not? Well maybe I really had gone off too fast. My legs felt good and the rest of me was coping, but only just.
Into lap 2 I tried to concentrate on keeping my speed up, everything working at max effort but feeling pretty smooth nonetheless. The mind was battling with doubts, thoughts that I was going too hard and likely to get injured or feel run down afterwards, doing myself more harm than good, but that is all classic mental stuff that assails you in any race. Perhaps it hits you harder in a solo run though, when the race is virtual. After all, when you're surrounded by others all working equally hard it feels normal and your mind has less ammunition when it wants to slow you down. Alone on the road you are a bit of an outlier and an easy target for negative thoughts.
The half way mark came round and again my watch flashed up something not much over 3 minutes, so although I had been finding it harder work I had managed to keep up the pace. The third half mile felt long, as if the loop around the business park had expanded mysteriously. Again I felt as if I was slowing and again the watch told me otherwise - although I was scrupulously avoiding even a glance at my pace or heart rate, I did still look when it flashed up the third half mile which again was around 3.03. So, now I was on for a good time by my standards, probably an improvement on the 12:21 I ran in Skopje. That meant I had a little mental war going on between having to go for it and run hard in the last half mile to take that opportunity vs sticking with plan A, which was not to run too hard as I still wasn't fully recovered from the hills.
In the end the chatter faded into the distance and my body just ran, I crossed the line and pressed the button at 12:11 with 10 seconds knocked off my SB and the realisation dawning that my long pilgrimage towards a sub-12 time might be successful. Checking out the lap times later the garmin actually had my 2 miles down as 12:06 which was even more encouraging.
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