3 mile run to set up some of the course, nice and slow.
5 mile Gibb cup.
Went off relatively hard with Stuart, Jason and Rich Phillips. Feeling fairly on the limit but no where near out of control. Stuart went off with Richard on the Valley bottom, I felt that Jason is always the better pacer and so I would rely on him to pace me up the hill and then we would reel them back in.
Felt fine up the hill and as the gradient reduced I realised that Jason was not on form, at this point we had allowed about 150m to develop, I realised my mistake just before John Mattison and upped the pace dropping Jason.
Felt strong and relaxed and so opened up the pace to try and reduce the gap. By the end of the ploughed field the gap was down to about 100m and I was still feeling OK.
Maintained pace up through the woods to the tea rooms and got the gap to about 75m. Off the tope of the tea rooms I opened everything up and went way over threshold witht he view to holding a 5 minute effort (as practiced in training sessions lately). I kept reducing the gap but was fighting into a horrendous headwind, Stuart was behind Richard ahead and so I knew I was fighting a losing battle.
Managed to reduce the gap to about 40m by the end.
Very cross with myself, I made the wrong tactical decision, I have definitely learnt that I can maintain a higher pace than I first thought, the key is to start off slower and build into my pace. Also an easy pace on the hills allows me to run much harder off the top.
3rd palce (2nd SLH)
27.45 mins (12 secs behind Stuart)
Was a minute quicker than last year when the ground was completely dry, so very pleased with that.
