River Ayr Way Challenge 2014 : Race Report

Aaraaghggh!!! Fecking shitty Blogger ate my REPORT!!!!!

Just now I logged in to finish up my River Ayr Race Report and the browser editor for Blogger just deleted all my text and pictures and left me with an empty document.  I had been writing over several evenings, quite a few hours work all gone with a single keystoke.  I never saved the empty document, but somehow blogger deleted all my work and saved the empty document with no way for me to roll it back.

If you wish to shout scream lots of expletives on my behalf please do.  I'll join in.   F*** S*** A*** #£$!1

After wasting lots of hours trying to write a blog post on my RAW race I simply don't have the time to pour more time into, so we'll just need to accept the following:

Race start, 9am at Glenbuck, the source of the River Ayr, time to race 41 miles to Ayr at the coast!

I turned up not feeling quite 100% after injury and lack of sleep due to worry about the Scotland's future but otherwise OK.  I raced, heart rate high right from the start, 15 bpm higher than my training runs at same pace!  Second half it was pretty warm as the sun shone relentless and temperate was up in the twenties.  I was on target for 6hrs based on even splits at the marathon point which I passed through in 3:54, but the hills, cramp and heat in the final 15 miles put paid to ambitious 6hr goal.

I finished in 6:15:18, a PB by 32 minutes which is effectively about 15 minutes faster than last year if you take account of the advantage of going downhill and running half a mile less with finishing at the Dam Park athletics stadium.  Came 5th overall, if it wasn't for cramp there is good chance I would have had my first podium finish - so I really need to fix this.  However, pretty happy with result as I felt I raced as well I could have on the day.  My average HR was 160 for the whole race, max HR was 180 during "sprint" finish as I tried to get under 6:15, but alas missed.

What next?  Recovery week, One weeks Half marathon training, then one week taper then the Great Scottish Run in Glasgow - I'll be chasing my half marathon PB of 1:28:58 I set back in 2010.  Jikes, changing from training for 9 min/mile ultra race to a sub 6:40 min/mile 13 mile race!