Last County League Cross Country 2011 – East Haddon

I had a terribly stressful Saturday. I was SO not in the mood for this and had I not been Northants Tri Club team captain and club cross country secretary I would most certainly not have gone to this race. My head was just not in the right place at all.

1st ever club and XC race, 2007

It is a race that is close to my heart though. East Haddon is the race where I first wore a club vest (at that time, Wellingborough and District Athletics Club) and also my first ever Cross country race. (2007!) I remember clearly the comments from my husband, who was at that time still getting to grips with the fact that he had a new much slimmer wife! He wasn’t able to go to watch the race, so when I was looking through the photos the club had taken, wasn’t able to find me at first. When I pointed out this picture, he said ‘oh, I didn’t realise that was you, you look like a proper runner!’

I remember the race clearly, being my first. I knew it was going to be tough, because it starts on an almighty steep downhill, before picking up a local point to point course. That naturally means, being an out and back, the, yes, the ginormous hill is how you get back up to the finish line! Last time, I ran it in rugby boots (blades) because it was so muddy!!

I was standing on the start line, with the rest of the crowd, thinking ‘why on earth am I here today, I am not in the mood, I shouldn’t have come’ etc etc. Kim Ingleby (@kimingleby on twitter, http://www.energisedperformance.com/) my NLP coach would have been very mad with me!! I set off with the crowd, positioning myself near the back, deciding I would use this as a training run, purely and simply. I was not going to race it, I didn’t have my heart in it today. All the way down the hill I was thinking ‘for goodness sake why am I bothering, I should just stop here and walk back, it doesn’t matter, there’s enough team runners for it not to matter what I am doing today...’ bla bla bla. 

I got to the foot of the hill and glanced at the pace. All was not too bad at that point. I suddenly thought, ‘what ARE you doing!? Are you doing the best you can, at this point in time? NO, Mel, YOU ARE NOT!!!’

These are ‘head stuff’ techniques Kim had taught me before my world champs race in 2010. I suddenly realised I was not doing what I should be doing (in my head that is!) You can read the full world champs race report here http://melanieryding.blogspot.com/2010/09/itu-world-championships-race-report.html

So, I got my brain back into the space where it should have been. Yes, I am now doing the best I can at this moment, yes I am. I carried on through my race, thinking this mantra over and over. I stuck to the same race plan; this was a training run, not a race. I am a triathlete; I AM doing the best I can at this moment in time. I began to overtake people on the cheeky hill in the middle of the course, retained my spot, then on the return hill, I kept repeating the same thing over and over to myself as I dragged my ass up the muddy incline back to the school, and the finish line. I was still slowly overtaking other people who were beginning to walk at this stage. I still didn’t care about the time, the pace, whatever. BUT I was STILL doing the best I could at that moment in time.

I crossed the line to a big club cheer (thanks guys, you’d have thought I had won!!)

The race is not timed officially, but you get given a finish number on a plastic card, which represents your position relative to everyone else of your gender. I was given a number some 30 places higher than I usually received. I was astounded. I began to think, well, there must be less people here today, that can’t be right... etc etc.

But no, it’s what I did that counts. I was here, I ran, I did the best I could, and I got a placing much better than I expected.

Job done! I successfully convinced myself that all was not lost after all!