"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

2 Mile Race - The Meadows, Edinburgh - July 2018

Recent short races - 2 milers and 5k - have seen me a bit off the pace. The last outing I was happy with was in Cambodia in February when I at least managed 12:41 in the heat. I feel like I'm on form these days if I hit sub 12:30. Last month just before my 50th birthday I was way short of that with a 13.25 in Biarritz but that was not an accurately measured course. The Meadows in Edinburgh is fast and flat and definitely a properly certified distance - in many ways a 2 miler there is "The Race of Truth".

Unusually (for recent years) I had no niggles or injuries I could really point to as excuses. Regular trips to the osteopath and a bit of foam rollering and stretching had resulted in three months of pretty trouble-free running and I'd made it up to 75 mins jog for my long run. Would it all go wrong?

We lined up and had a short silence together before the off and then I found myself chasing the clear favourite Sadanand followed by the youthful Gianluca then Suswara then me, with Rasmivan close behind. I pushed myself from the off but things felt good and I reckoned I could sustain the pace -whatever the pace was! Towards the end of lap 1 as we cruised down a lovely path framed into a green tunnel by overhanging trees, I turned the corner and saw Gianluca ahead of us sail past the marshal at the next bend and run off in the wrong direction. I called out to him but he was in race trance and didn't respond. Oh well - I did my best.

The course, close to the centre of Edinburgh, is one I've run a few times before and always enjoyed. It brings the best out of you every time you run there and it's both beautiful and beautifully simple. A perfect 1-mile loop with no really tight bends, where you can switch off your mind and just run and breath, breath and run, focus on your body or disconnect from your body and let it run by itself, whatever your state of consciousness allows.

I came through the first lap in 6.15 and managed to sustain it, pushing hard all the way, to finish totally breathless and properly used up in a time of 12.27. Very happy!!

No urge to try and bring that down, just sustain my running and up the distance as my body and its recurrent niggles permits. Triathlon next at the end of the month...with maybe some rides and hikes before that but no serious racing, unless of course I get tempted to have another outing at 5k? Not sure that would be sensible but my running is not always sensible, more "intuitive". Lets see what happens.

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