Race Report - Lake Vyrnwy HM

Wednesday – I was starting at a dark cloud on the screen. The cloud had three raindrops on it, I don’t think I’d ever seen three raindrops on a cloud before. The weather forecast for Sunday was abysmal. Bookended by two relatively decent days, the weather predicted for Sunday the 15^th of September was almost biblical. “I knew I should have done Bristol” I said to myself. The 1pm start time of Lake Vyrnwy put it right in the middle of the worst of the weather.

I sent Nick an email to see if there were any changes to the plan. “If it’s a bad as they say, run marathon pace, otherwise go for it, you’re in PB shape” was his reply, and of course he was right. When I’d set my HM PB at Bath in the spring, and gone sub-90 for the first time, it was on the back of a persistent bit of foot pain and a dodgy 10K result. This time, I was clearly the fittest I’d ever been and was *touch wood* injury free. So no excuses really, and it seemed a shame to miss out because of a bit of inclement weather.

The day arrived and I trooped down to Lake Vyrnwy, on my own as Steve had flatly refused to stand about in the hissing rain for hours on end. You can’t really argue with that, but it felt strange not having him there. After the rigmarole of Bath and Bristol, having such a low-key approach to a HM PB attempt seemed strange. 

On arrival I was met with some pretty persistent rain and wind. The runners all huddled in the village sports centre, like refugees. An announcement that “there was 20mins to go and would the runners make their way to the start” was met with indifference by all present. The Vyrnwy Half has a great community feel about it, the sort of race that feels like it is put on by runners, for runners. The big city events can be great (see Bath) but I think I prefer these smaller races, especially if you get a good field at the front. Soon it was time to make our way to the start.

I’d brought a VLM space-blanket to wear at the start, felt a bit of a tit, but it kept me warm (as well as enabling me to do Superman impressions). The start was actually on a downhill slope, and as I made my way up the hill I noticed there were finish time markers by the side of the road. Standing where I usually stand in races, I noticed I was by the 70min marker. Oops! I trotted further up the hill, coming to a stop by the 80-90min marker. Looking back towards the start I couldn’t help but notice “there are a hell of a lot of sub 80min HM-ers  here?” At that point a couple of gents directly behind me started talking about finishing times, as soon as I heard “ break 2hrs” I nudged forward a bit, but still found myself quite far back from the front. All of a sudden we started moving forward, I don’t think I heard a gun but it looked like we’d started so I whipped off the space-blanket and got ready to start the Garmin on the line.

The first mile of the course is uphill to the reservoir, I didn’t want to use up too much energy at the start so kept it steady, I was overtaking a lot of people who had started too far forward (grrr) but it looked like I wasn’t the only one, as a couple of very quick runners came powering through, I was tempted to go with them, but I was here to run my own race. My plan was to do a “Bath”, I know what pace I wanted and would stick to that, no dramas. The first mile marker came into view and I lapped my watch “6:52”. Not bad considering the weaving I’d had to do. Let’s do this. The couple of ham rolls I’d scoffed an hour earlier were causing a bit of cramp, but there was sod all I could do about it so I did my best to ignore it.

Not before long, we were starting to make our way round the reservoir, Mile 2 marker came and I clocked the mile split, well I tried to but the rain was obscuring the screen. I thought it had said 6:40something so I let it be. The next few miles were pretty uneventful. At the first water station I was relieved that they were giving out proper bottles, not plastic cups (with the lids already removed, another example of how well run the event was). 

At about Mile 3, a felt someone on my right shoulder, quite a tall lean guy passed me and do you know he was the spitting image of Andrew Lemoncello! Of course it wasn’t, but regular readers of this blog will know how my brain loves a flight of fancy occasionally. He settled about 75m in front of me, but then I had someone to work off, so what did I do? For the next 3 miles I reeled in Andrew Lemoncello! When I overtook him, he came with me, along with a young lad who was by us at the time. After about 400m they seemed to decide it wasn’t worth it and dropped back. BOOM!

 

On reflection, this was the first time I properly realised the race was going well, by about Mile 6 the only thing I could hear was the slightly heavy breathing of the guys next to me and  I felt fine. I’d been warned about the incline at that point, but to be honest after Kenyan Hills sessions it felt relatively flat. In fact, I was doing a lot of my overtaking on the slightly ‘up’ bits as people seemed a bit cautious. 

It was great to reach the turning point at the top of the Lake. The feared-for wind didn’t really materialise and I carried on knocking of the miles back on target. Mentally, I was telling myself “don’t go silly, keep it in a box” I was reeling runners in all the time which felt amazing, I was trying not to be ‘isolated’ for too long, so if there was a group ahead I would push on slightly to get amongst them. This became harder as the race went on as the runners were spread out, so I resorted to catching individuals “the vest in front” as ‘someone’ might say.  The wind and rain was actually helping here, by acting as a cooling agent as my body temperature started to rise.

At about the 8-9 Mile mark I spotted the black and white vest of a Penny Lane Strider ahead. This was a critical moment for me, I knew it was Steve McNicholas and he is a very good runner. Now, I could either let him beat me by beating myself up, or I could crack on. I wasn’t sure if he’d stay on my shoulder or not, and mentally I would have found that tough. I reeled him in over the course of a mile or so, breathing a bit heavier by this point. 

“Push on Mitch, get that PB” he said as I passed. My brain started to meltdown slightly at the thought it was all going well but I locked it down within a second. I really appreciated that call from Steve and was able to mentally block him out of my head from that point. This was my race and I wanted to be first Strider home (I hope this doesn’t sound too mercenary). I’ve got tired of mediocre performances over the years, and of late I’m learning how to make sure I don’t have another. 

The last water station seemed to take an age to arrive, even though the Mile Marker was saying 10 or 11 miles, my brain was trying to tell me it was much further than that. Of course, I ignored it. It helped that I knew the last mile was pretty much all downhill to the village. This mean I could tell myself “you just need to get to Mile 12 and then let Gravity do all the work”. Before long, the water tower of the reservoir came into view and I knew it was nearly time to head back down the hill. At this point a runner came steaming through, and I was half tempted to go with him but I’d got to that point by being sensible and didn’t was to mess it up now, so I carried on as per plan. I’m quite proud that, whilst going round the reservoir, I think I can count the number of runners who passed me, but I didn’t subsequently re-pass, on one hand.

We descended the hill back to the finish line, there was a little kick of a hill about 400m from the finish which I swore myself up, and before I knew it, it was all over.

My watch said 1:27:54 – Frist Penny Lane Strider home and an 84 second PB. I’ll take that any day. The marshal at the finish line has said I was the first runner she’s seen smiling over the finish, but how could I not, it had pretty much been a perfect race and the fact that about three quarters of it had felt like an easy Sunday run made it even better. At times, I am accused of being too cautious in racing, but that seems to work for me, and to be honest, to more I race in this way, the more confidence it is giving to got a bit crazy at a future race. Maybe next year, it will be at Lake Vyrnwy. I’ll be tearing up those roads.

Slightly Damp

PS) True to the Hawkins Family Curse, I didn’t appear in the final results, I have contacted the timing people and it's now sorted - confirmed as 1:27:54 as they found me on the race video

 

PPS) Steve got his own back, I had 45 minutes easy to do afterwards and he sent me off down this road which turned into a hill. A very big 2-mile long hill. Ouch.