As everyone lined up at the start it was clear that numbers were well down – no great surprise as we are now well in to the holiday season here. My legs felt fairly fresh on the first lap as they should have done having not run since the same time last week and having had a reasonable warm-up for a change. I resisted the temptation to race the first woman to the line only to find, as usual, that she carried on for the next lap. Given that she continued to pull away from me it was fortunate (for my male pride) that she then proceeded to stop at the end of the second lap. Indeed, everyone in front of me stopped at this point so I set out on the third lap in the lead.
Needless to say a stitch kicked in at this point – probably something to do with working at home in close proximity to Christine’s baking! Fortunately it eased after a few hundred metres and by half way round the last lap I was able to stretch out my legs a bit again. Perhaps just as well as the second and third placed runners were only about 20 seconds behind. So – a personal best both in time and position. Perhaps I should stop there!