Cyprus International 4-Day Challenge: Day 3

Day 3 - the trail half marathon. Its no coincidence that we decided to have our start line photo taken in front of one of the race ambulances! This is the day where the overall race series can be won and lost. After yesterday's punishing hill race, the sky was even clearer and the sun hotter by the time the race buses had taken us 1000 feet up into the mountains some 30km from race HQ in Paphos. The point of taking us 1000 feet up into the Akams Nature reserve was of course to enable the first 10km of the half marathon to be a further 1000 foot climb on sandy, rocky trails. Then the course switched to a rough skim of concrete descending 2000 feet over 7km before a tortuous 4km flat rocky trail to the finish on the beach.

On the start line I knew I had an 11:47 lead in my class that I could easily lose over the half marathon distance if things went even slightly badly. On the gun I did not go with the pack of 8 or 9 young guns but settled on my own a few metres back. Big mistake as one of the course ambulances immediately passed me to tail the lead pack and I was stuck in a cloud of dust for the next km. Thankfully a tight up-hill hairpin bend gave me the chance to pass the ambulance and I stuck to the middle of the road from there on to keep him behind. The legs were still powerless on the climb as was the case yesterday and the sun was even hotter so this was a steady uphill slog at what felt like snail pace (and leaving my now characteristic snail trail of snot). A few army guys ran past me here (easily recognisable as every limb had a tattoo - now I know what is meant by the Edinburgh Military Tattoo) but no sign of any M45's so when I reached the top of the climb at 10k in around 46 minutes I was reasonably confident that I could improve on the downhill. It didn't really though. I had the ambulance behind me for company all the way down the series of hairpin bends over the 7k descent. Although I managed to pick up the pace to around 6 minute miles, I still lost a few more places and could not stride out as the hills were just too steep. I was however glad of my decision not to wear racing shoes and instead had my regular trainers on which provided some cushioning (and a big blister on my instep) on the pounding descent. However when the course levelled out with 4k to go the legs said no and I more or less jogged over the rocky coastal trail towards the finish. The finish line was visible from about 2k out but worse you had to run past the finish for 500m and then double back on a soft sandy path to the line which I crossed in 1:31:14 in 13th position (the overall winner was finished in around 1:19). Then a litre of water was quickly swallowed and into the sea to cool the legs off (actually the sea was warm so not as effective as a Scottish beach but I am definitely not complaining). Half the British Army also seemed to be in the sea and the other half were relieving the Mr Wippy Rambo ice cream van of its supply of cones.

Jimmy was not lucky. He came to the race having not run for two weeks with a calf injury. Somehow he had got through the first two races without aggravating it but after only 4k today the calf  locked up again. He shuffled on to the top of the climb at which point the M60 who had been ahead of him in the series caught and passed him. This provided enough adrenalin to hide the pain and Jimmy was able to modify his stride on the descent to save the calf and to pass and beat the other M60 by a couple of minutes, finishing in 2:01. It is however unlikely that Jimmy will be able to run tomorrow.

Subsequent inspection of the results surprisingly showed that I had extended my M45 lead to over 20 minutes. With only the Paphos 10k Road Race (very flat :-)) tomorrow, this is quite a strong, no pressure situation to be in.

 Final report tomorrow.
Alan