I cut it a bit fine getting to the event this morning, so had no time to prepare properly. I think I was actually last to the start line, with no warm-up and no recce, but hey, it's only five miles!
There were several familiar faces as usual, including a few Cannon Hill parkrunners.
The facilities, provided by Warwick University as Godiva await construction of their new clubhouse, were excellent, as were the conditions, with the tiny exception of a small patch of mud on one corner where someone slipped and nearly went over in front of me. There were plenty of marshals, doing a great job, and lots of support.
We were advised against wearing MP3 players as it is 'discourteous to the marshals'. I've never heard it put that way before - it's usually about being able to hear other runners, traffic and marshals' instructions. I never run wired for sound myself, for those very reasons. It had never occurred to me when marshalling that runners were being discourteous (I shan't share my thoughts here - maybe another day).
As for my performance, well as usual I went off a bit fast, more like 5 km pace, and passed Sian, but by half way I was beginning to feel the effects of the large Christmas dinner I'd had on New Years Day (including drinks several and various). My legs started to feel heavy pretty soon after, so my pace dropped significantly, and Sian overtook me.
At the finish I forgot to stop my watch again, so was unsure of my time until the results were published on the Godiva site, very promptly, at around 4pm. I was sure of no PB, though, expecting about 34½ minutes, which proved to be quite accurate - officially 59th of 147 in 34:29 (third of twelve M50s, but by quite a long way). That's five seconds slower than in the Godiva Autumnal 5 in 2009!
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