Well I went to the race as planned but decided to just run how I felt and not to wear my racing shoes.  There were a few of us from the Club - Karl, Simon, Darren, Louise, Mark, Jane, Andrea, Emily and Darren (Louise's husband).

Here's the graph of the race route which shows the undulating nature of the course...  All righht hilly!

As you can see the second mile had a big hill! My first mile was steady in 6:38 and I held myself back a touch so as not to get too carried away as I knew what to expect in the second mile.

My second slowed as expected to 7:14 and I was caught by Simon and Karl but stuck in as close to them as I could until the top of the hill.  Just after the hill I was also caught my Neil who coaches at another club and I knew I would have to fight to beat him.

On the long downhill I caught Karl but Simon got away I timed my final run and got clear of Karl and Neil but finished slightly behind Simon.  My third mile was 6:21 and the last bit in 31s was at 5:27 pace!! My time was my best for a couple of years on this course - 20:46 averaging 6:42 a mile, and no problem with my back tonight!!

Louise had a great race and caught and passed Darren and Mark in the last mile. The three young girls from my group that ran Jane, Andrea and Emily all ran excellently and really enjoyed the experience and Louise's husband Darren in his first road race with us did really well and even outsprinted two athletes in the final 150m.

So I'm glad I raced now, but left with the difficult choice of which shoes to run the marathon in???