RACE 4 (again) - Spring 2016 ZRVR (5k)

I wasn't going to do this, but I decided to race again with the zombies. Given that my race packet hadn't arrived for last weekend's 10k race, when it arrived on Friday morning I was excited to do the whole thing again as it was intended. But I've had a rotten cold all week and been coughing and spluttering. That means I've not been running mid week like I usually do, so I was desperate to get out even though not fully recovered. The arrival of my race packet was the only incentive I needed, so I put on the race t-shirt and racing bib and off I went!

The ZRVR has two leaderboards, so I decided to get my name on the 5k board this time. I worked out a loop around Greenfield that started at the border again (same as the 10k route) and ended about 0.5km back into Mossley. I accepted that I may need to slow down and possibly even walk should my coughing get too bad, but was happy to give it a go.

Not wanting to do things by halves, I set myself a 5m/km pace and got the Well-i-hole climb out of the way at the start of the race and waved to a fellow Greyhound as I passed Tesco. It wasn't easy, but I managed to keep roughly to my pace, slightly slowing throughout the race, but finishing with a downhill towards Mossley's Fire Station Nursery meant a fast finish as usual.

Chuffed to bits with another PB over 5k distance and a time of 24 mins 33 secs (although Strava said 24m 25s). That placed me 141st out of 1875 racers on the 5k leaderboard, so very pleased to be in the top 10%. The race window is still open until end of Monday April 11th, so that's not the final position. I will update this post on Tuesday with final positions on both leaderboards.

Thinking of my fellow Greyhounds today, with a good number of them racing the Manchester Marathon (and some doing the London Marathon next weekend!).

UPDATE 11/04: Due to the issue of late delivery of race packets, Six to Start have extended the race window by one week, so I will upload final positions on Tuesday 19/04 instead.

UPDATE 20/04: The race window has now closed and the final results are in. The 10km was run 1,112 times and I came 153rd, placing me in the top 13.8%. The 5km was run 3,288 times and I came 204th, placing me in the top 6.2%. I'm very pleased with those results.