Today I ran at York House School in a cross country race for under 11 boys over a distance of 1.8 km. I was quite worried before the race because I had been very sick while on holiday in December and had only just recovered. I knew I was nowhere near my full fitness. In my training with my running club, I have been much further behind than I was before I got ill. Even so, because I was representing my school, which means a lot to me, I wanted to try my best and see what I could achieve.
Normally in cross country races, I would expect to run at around 3:35 per km on a fairly flat course. On a harder course, my normal pace would be closer to 3:45 or 3:50 per km. This course was quite easy, so if I had been fit I would have expected to run at least 3:40 per km. Knowing that, I decided to stick to my usual race tactic and try to take the lead early. I wanted to race positively even though I knew I was not at my best.
At the start of the race, I managed to get into the lead straight away. I pushed on and tried to open up a gap, but very quickly I could feel that my legs did not have the stamina they normally do. I held the lead for about the first 30 seconds. After that, the first boy passed me, followed by the second and then the third, and suddenly I found myself fighting hard just to hold on to fourth place.
During the race, I felt very weak and uncomfortable. My legs were hurting a lot, my heart was beating really fast and I just did not feel strong. Even so, I never thought about giving up. Giving up is not in my DNA and I wanted to push myself as much as I could. I worked hard to stay in fourth place and tried to close the gap on third, but I just did not have enough energy to do it.
I finished the race in a time of 7:56, coming fourth overall. My pace was about 3:59 per km, which is much slower than my normal speed on a course like this. My watch measured the distance as 1.99 km, so I know I was around 19 seconds per km slower than usual. Even so, I was only about 10 seconds behind first place, which shows how close the race was.
Although I was disappointed with the result, I know there are positives to take from it. If I had been fully fit, I believe I would have won the race by around 30 seconds. In running, it is important to lose as well as win because losing makes you want to improve even more. Right now, my focus is on being patient, training hard and slowly getting my fitness back. There is still lots of room for improvement, and I am excited to see what is coming next.
