Racing Unfit

I hate racing when I'm not fit!!  In the past I would only race if I was 100% fit or there abouts.  This year though I've tried to do a few races knowing I'm not in the best shape (far from it) and hope that I will be stronger mentally from doing this. 

My first unfit race was the National Cross Country Relays on 1st November  I wasn't too bothered about not being fully fit as it was so short (just 3k) so I reasoned that it was 39k shorter than my favoured distance of marathon running and it was a fun event and a chance to race with and meet some new team members of my new club Stockport Harriers.  I was quite pleased with how I ran.  I haven't run a cross country race for over 8 years and the course was very undulating, twisty and very uneven under foot.  I was a bit of a wimp in places and very stuttery with my stride length!  I need to do a lot more off road, technical training runs!  I was on the 2nd leg and managed to hold the 5th place that the first leg runner had come in at.  Overall we came 6th which was a good result.

I then raced at the Leeds Abbey Dash 10k on 16th November.  Originally when I'd entered this I was hoping to be in pb shape but after the injury and break I had to accept that this wasn't going to be.  I also got asked to represent the North of England which I didn't want to turn down as I've been asked a few times and its always clashed with a marathon in the past.  I was gutted to be in such a high caliber race knowing that I wouldn't be at full fitness as I would really  have liked to go against the other girls knowing that it could bring out my best.  During the race I started off too fast!  The 1st km was a touch quicker than my 5k pb time and normally this wouldn't feel too quick I would just know I needed to slow down, this time it really hurt!  I had 3km of pain before settling down.  To be honest I lost my  head a bit because so many girls had gone past me and I felt like crap!  I settled into a pace that by 7km I felt I could probably run a half marathon at the same pace!  My finish time was as expected with current form but I was gutted to finish 29th.