EASY....STEADY......BRISK......SORTED.

5 Rise Locks to Low Lane farm at Silsden is becoming firmly established as my midweek, medium length run. Wet and quite breezy setting off but the pace throughout was consistently a few seconds faster than last week; each mile being nudged down to my humble "brisk" pace for the last 3 to 4 miles. Last week 78.02
today 76.40.                     9.07     8.48    8.38    8.37    8.31    8.20    8.16    8.15    8.03

Again it was tempting to push those last 3 miles up to tempo pace but I decided to save that effort for Saturday.

This picture of  Paula Radcliffe in tears conducting a post race N.Y. interview made me think again of Spedding's 3 key motivational questions. What do I want? Why do I want it? How much do I want it?  Presumably she wanted to win in a world class time. Presumably she wanted to record a return to form that would guarantee her the biggest cheque of the day. Presumably despite her past performances she wanted "it" enough for not achieving what she wanted to reduce her to tears. Tears for which in A.W. last week she was strongly criticised for wallowing in self pity instead of maintaining her dignity and pouring praise on Derartu Tulu (N. Y. marathon winner), conceding she was beaten on the day by the better runner. The A.W. piece was this week described in "Letters" as sour, cynical and mean spirited.

I can understand her being disappointed but her 2.29 plus was entirely predictable based on her N.Y. half marathon time of 69 plus and of course earnings wise she will still have pocketed a handsome amount. As they say ...no one died.

Ever cried after a race?  I recall one occasion....but only one.  National |Cross Country Luton 1967. Having been coached to start every race very fast through the winter, I recall spearheading the field with a teammate after 1/4 mile; only to suffer very, very badly as we hit plough. Probably deep in oxygen debt,  runners streamed by in droves as they do in the National.  Eventually, I finished 97th. exhausted and quite upset!
Northern champions we (Sale H.) were favourites to win.....we finished 5th.

Redemption came the following week, however. 12th in the Inter Counties running for Lancashire.  I'd put the bad race behind me straight away and learnt from it.  When will Paula's redemption come?  Probably not for many months before giving herself the chance to pick herself up.