Wrexham Freedom 20 Mile Road Race - March 8th 2020

I'm remaining positive about London going ahead, despite the 'C Word' , I am hopeful the situation will improve or be sufficiently delayed by the time Manchester, Boston and of course my dance London come around, I'm 100% focused on London and training hard regardless, I've taken out an insurance policy of entering the UK Boston Marathon in Lincolnshire as a potential back up race the week before, so all being well, I'll still be running a Marathon come the end of April....remaining hopeful it's the big one.

Training has been going really well since the start of the year, following a meeting with coach Dom Sexton and Joe in the local micro pub Tweed Tap to discuss 2020 goals, involving probably more beer than tactics it's fair to say, we came up with a few tweaks to the training from my Chicago training block. Just small changes, but changes all the same. I've dropped in some proper speed sessions thanks to Mark Collier and Salford Harriers on Tuesday nights, I've also added some additional speed to the end of my long runs whilst also adding 10 - 15 seconds per mile average on longer runs. More recently I have added some hill reps curtesy of Tony Hillers Hyde Running Community groups on Thursday, something I'll look to continue and overall increasing the base mileage, currently tracking about 70 miles per week, set to peak at 80 in late March Early April. Only thing I'm not doing which I should be is tempo runs, so I need to try and fix that....

The Wrexham Freedom 20 mile road race came around, finally an event to test the training, after the Village Bakery Half was cancelled due to bad weather this was my first race since early January in the North Lakes Half Marathon, read about that here. so I was really looking forward to this one.

The event is organised by Run Wales, it's been going for a few years now in various forms, in the past it's been called the Wrexham Festival of Run, combining a marathon, a 20 mile run and a half marathon. It's struggled a couple of times with flooding and some poor feedback on the route being a lot of industrial estates . But for me, the event is marketed as a marathon training event , hence it's set in early March to align to Spring Marathon Training. I myself would recommended it, yes the route is a little bland, no there isn't much support, but it's well organised, nice medal and T Shirt and perfectly timed for your marathon training, so long as your not expecting the Las Vegas Marathon this is a good event and well worth a look at. I've been turning up in it's various forms since 2013, so it must be ok.

All about the bling ….

It was a fairly early start, I picked up Hyde club mate Joe from Stalybridge at 7am in order to arrive about an hour before the race started, the weather was pretty good for running, cool, light winds and the odd light shower. We landed lucky with parking and found a free spot just outside the main event parking and headed straight into race registration. It was hand shakes all around with any COVID-19 concerns off the menu this morning as we bumped into various friends from the Northern running community. What I quickly noted was the start list published here didn't match the start list on the website, with Gavin Hill of Sale Harriers and Martin Green of North Wales RC standing out as I examined the list, both excellent runners and indicated a strong field I thought.
The event base is the Queens Way Athletics track in Wrexham this year, which works well as a base and organisation was good, with number collection and bag drop pretty slick. It also gave me and Joe a good place to warm up, so we got set and did a couple of steady laps to get the legs warmed up. Joe is just back from injury, so throwing caution to the wind and looking to treat today as a well paced 20 mile training run, for me today was all about running at my goal London pace , 6 min miles and just about the 2 hour mark. So for us both a big day really.

After a short warm up and tactics discussion we lined up on the start line, I squeezed into what looked like a good spot a couple of runners from the front. The race started and we took in one lap of the athletics track before leaving the track and heading out onto the country lanes. As is now customary in my runs my first few miles were a bit hot, 5:45, 5.52 and 5:53 , despite my quicker first few miles the lead pack were moving far too quick to chase so dropped back and settled into my planned 6 min mile pace.

Early stages of the race - the train

I'd actually hoped that I would have some help today, but literally no one seemed to be running 6 min miles , the runners ahead were 5:15 - 5;45's whilst no one behind me seemed interested in running with me today , in fact the whole field seemed to form a spaced out train rather than work together which was odd, so after just 4 or 5 miles I was all alone on the road, just the odd marshal to keep me company. What was pleasing however was I felt comfortable , I felt I could have lifted the pace but wanted to keep my powder dry on what was potentially a long day at the office. The course is two laps returning to race HQ and then heading out for a second loop to make the 20 miles , whilst also offering those running the 10 miles the same finish area as the 20, so mentally I broke the course down into four 5 mile chunks and tapped away the pace on my own. Surprisingly I managed to work away on my own ok, normally I like to work in a group but today was content solo, I could see some runners behind me in the corner of my eye on bends but felt comfortable and not pressured by them, in fact I was hoping someone would catch up and offer me help and some company!
 It became apparent however the second 5 miles back towards race HQ were tougher than the first 5, being into a headwind and slightly up hill, so I had to dig in a bit here to keep the pace in the target zone. In the distance I could see a runner I was gaining ground on, , its always a mental boost to have a target, the first one I'd had all day to be fair, just before returning to HQ I caught him and after a brief chat I pressed on, as I approached the track and turn around point I saw the lead bike heading back out closely followed by Gavin Hill of Sale Harriers, all alone and flying! at least a mile ahead of me and having an impressive race.

Heading out for lap 2 11 miles in

The route runs around the track again before heading back out, and into the 3rd 5 miles. On the way back out I passed Laura from Salford Harriers, who shouted "your in 7th if I've counted right" , great update. I felt I could try and push on a little when the opportunity came, after almost being wiped out by a van which completely ignored the marshals and drove straight onto the route and into my path I regained my composure, now armed with a tailwind and slightly downhill along with a bit of adrenalin curtesy of the van driver I was now moving at sub 6 min miles again, although no one in sight to chase! It started to rain and hail a little which at least was something else to think about, and made me feel a bit hardcore (so long as it didn't rain too hard mind )

 

I soon hit the 15 mile point, 4th stage of the race and the hardest, the head wind and incline was back. My HR date on the Garmin wrist strap is always off, but I could certainly feel I was working harder on the ups now and took on my first gel a this point. I afforded myself a couple of quick glances over my shoulder on the way in, and just tried to concentrate on my running style, trying to get the 'pop' going, chest out, chin up etc.  I couldn't see anyone behind, breaking into the final 5k I actually still felt good and probably had one of my easier ends to a race I've experienced. As I entered the athletics ground I heard someone shout "brilliant , sub 2 hours!", bloody hell I thought, he's right. I knew I wanted 6 min miles but didn't really do the maths to realise I could run 20 in sub 2.





I finished the race in 7th place (well reported Laura) in 1:59:50, my average pace was 5:59 min per mile, I couldn't be more pleased with that and how I controlled the pace over the run. I've written some gritty blogs in the past, and reported the occasional melt down, so it's nice to write this up, I turned up and ran exactly as planned with no dramas. I quickly got some warm clothes on and got my recovery drink in and waited for Joe who came in at an impressive 2:14:49 , considering this was his longest run since Yorkshire Marathon due to recent injuries it was certainly a good day at the office for Hyde RC. Unsurprisingly Gavin Hill won the race in 1:46;10, with Ryan Davis and Martin Green coming in close together in 2nd and 3rd in 1:53:08 and 1:53:13.

Once Laura had finished looking strong also we headed back to the car to get going, it's about an hours drive, much of that was filled with conversation about pacing and recovery strategies,  Pizza, beer etc.

Overall a great day out, I love it when a plan comes together!

Run Wales will have a Wrexham Running event on next year early spring, hopefully they'll see this new format as a success, I felt it was, perfectly timed marathon training event with a good field of runners at all abilities, nice medal and quality T-Shirt, check it out here!https://www.runwales.com/

Next up is the Coniston 14 mile road race in a couple of weeks, then it's the big countdown to London Marathon, assuming the Coronavirus doesn't scupper London, if it does, I'll feel I may never get to run London! But we need to do what we need to do I guess, so here's to hope!

Thanks to everyone for the support as always! gets me out the front door when it's pissing it down and I can't be arsed, but delivers me days like these!