SNUFFED OUT BY SUMMER SNIFFLES BUT SECONDS STILL SNIPPED OFF
HARROCK HILL RACE SERIES [3]
Last week's race at Widdop was backed up by a couple of Thursday recovery miles and a steady Friday ten miler that told me all I needed to know about my fitness - I was entering a good place. The third rendition of the Harrock Hill quartet couldn't come quickly enough. I was going to smash it up. Confident that with a quicker start and now more durability in the legs for the latter stages, I could snap at least another ninety seconds off my June time. Delusion this was not, far from it, this was a realistic aim. I had mapped out the rest of the week's training and envisaged the race itself, knowing exactly what I had to do and was looking forward to getting on with it.
But Friday evening I sat down at the dining table when I suddenly felt the back of my throat drying. Strangely without any warning signs, there and then in an instant, a Summer cold was on it's way. I don't recall being able to pick out the key moment cold symptoms first kicked in before, but that's what happened here. Absolutely bloody typical though, just as I had got going! Then the potential consequences spring to mind. Harrock Hill was looking compromised if not altogether banished from possibility, and what if this thing gets on my chest and hangs around for weeks? Aaaagh!
By Sunday a fairly constant stream was depositing from my nose but I managed to get an interval session in, albeit at the expense of bringing on a full evening of sneezing and hardcore nose blowing. By Monday it was clear that the thing had peaked and wasn't getting on my chest in a bad way, but I was feeling tired and my head was aching. Tuesday, less reliant on tissues and now I'm thinking maybe I can do the race after all. Wednesday, race day, still not sure so a couple of miles in the morning as a tester run was a snotty affair, but the legs were ticking over fine. By 4pm and taking tonics from the Beechams range, I'd decided. Sod it, I'll be giving it a go. In this instance a professional athlete would be have been told to forget it by their coach and given a rehabilitative programme of cross training to tackle until back to full running fettle. But I am an amateur and a nobody in particular one at that. I am coached by the conflictions of my own conscience in which heart more often than not overrules the head. This under-riding force decided it was a good idea to stick my head on the block. I was racing. Last week I was thinking about this race in a fearless manner, now it was looking like an exercise in damage limitation and how deep I could dig having been under the weather for four days. I set off harder as originally planned and seemed to be coping fine until my race morphed in to a de ja vu of last month. Darren Fishwick forged ahead of me at precisely the same spot, then that Harkin chap got ahead of me and kept his distance again. A few more places went cheaply begging too as I really struggled in the respiratory department and lacked that bit of engine power that I had felt pre-sniffles. The latter half of this race was messy and I was hanging on very grimly indeed. I feared the worst at the finishing line and made a preparatory wince to brace myself before glancing down at my watch for what felt like a degenerative time. But in actual fact I had still managed to snip four seconds off last month's outing and under the circumstances, that will do.
Me, me, me. Have I nothing better to ramble about? I ought to spare a mention for the race organisers from the running club of Newburgh Nomads who continue to do a splendid job putting these races on in the Summer. They are an unassuming bunch but deserve much credit, particularly those race officials at the sharp end in the infamous cow field. This role demands above and beyond what your average marshal would be likely to experience, herding frisky cattle away from the invading running entourage. The sight of Nomad Andy Quickfall scampering across a field with well over a dozen burly young Belted Galloway's thundering along the far fence was a sight to behold and is just one of a number of things that make the Harrock Hill race what it is.      

Wednesday 26th July
HARROCK HILL RACE SERIES [3]   5.2m/800ft   Bispham Green, West Lancs.
1st Man - Josh Tighe (Northumberland FR) 32:10
1st Lady - Noora Ronkainen (Liverpool H) 38:49
My Stats - 37:00 / 14/224 

I got thinking how many Harrock Hill races I have actually done and it turned out that was my 24th appearance, my third this year but only my sixth in the last six years. The other eighteen were condensed in to the previous six years between 2006 and 2011. Below is a stat attack of all those performances. In more recent years a slight course diversion adds maybe half a minute to forty seconds for the likes of myself, but even so my demise since 2011 is most evident!
Year    [Race 1/4]
2006 - [1] 35:28 / 11th   [2] 35:29 / 16th   [3] 34:50 / 15th   [4] 33:58 / 10th 
2007 - [1] 33:36 / 6th
2008 - [1] 34:29 / 6th   [2] 33:46 / 6th   [3] 34:14 / 3rd   [4] 34:22 / 5th   ...Overall Series 3rd  
2009 - [3] 34:13 / 4th   [4] 34:08 / 5th 
2010 - [1] 35:06 / 8th   [2] 34:12 / 3rd   [3] 34:00 / 6th   [4] 34:07 / 4th   ...Overall Series 2nd
2011 - [1] 33:37 / 5th   [3] 33:41 / 2nd   [4] 33:40 / 2nd   ...Overall Series 2nd
2012 -
2013 -
2014 - [3] 35:59 / 6th   [4] 35:39 / 5th

2015 - [3] 36:27 / 8th
2016 -
2017 - 2017 - [1] 39:03 / 16th   [2] 37:04 / 8th   [3] 37:00 / 14th