Ashby 20 2022

March 20th 2022

20 miles road

The Ashby 20 takes place not far from my in-laws (chidlcare - thank you so much), and hearsay has told me it is a popular race. I decided to run it as a "training run", with the plan given to me involving negative splitting in 5 mile chunks. This proved a challenge in the first 5 miles, as it is much the downhill start. However, I really held myself back, letting people I know sweep past me and out onto the course.

Through the middle 10 miles, the course follows a lap of lightly undulating countryside. I was finding it odd spending so long on tarmac, but it did help keep my pacing very steady, rising from 08:35 in the second five miles, to 08:20 in the third five miles. I targeted 08:00 in the last five miles, which, other than up a significant hill, I managed to keep. I feel like my GAP (Grade adjusted pace) would have shown a good effort on this run.

I'm pretty chuffed with this run, off the back of some Grizzly legs, and also carrying as if running an ultra (I felt a bit of a chump with a vest on the start, very few had them). I fuelled well though, very little was available on the course, and there was a definite sense of competitors flagging as I swept past them in the last 5 miles, once "allowed" to increase my pace...

Conditions were fantastic, and this was a reasonably well run race with a large and competitive club runner field. A good day.

Times
Total time:  02:44:29

Standings
Gender category:          44/513         9%

Age category                22/162        14%
Overall category:        265/1069      25%