BERWICK 10K

Seem to have found a recurring theme in a lot of my races this year..
The pain and effort seems to be up on last year but the times are getting slightly slower.
I don't know how you would quantify effort. But I did the Berwick 10k trail race today and it felt every bit as sore as last year and yet my time was slightly slower.

Maybe time to reevaluate the speed/endurance mix of my training.

Anyhoo. Quite a good race. Lovely course. Well signed and marshaled.
I noted last year that I might have been better off with road shoes rather than trail, as a fair bit of the run is on road.  So today that's what I did and when me and Anne did our couple of mile warm up (one mile or so out then back) I felt I had made the right choice. Nice and firm under foot.
The race starts near the car park at Spittal beach and then goes along the seafront, past some houses and shops before a steep climb up to the cliff top path and then a wee loop that takers in a couple of fields before heading through a couple of wee villages and then back.
My choice of shoes looked a good one. Until about 20 yards after where me and Anne had ran up to. Then it turned into a bit of a quagmire and the lack of grip left me slipping about. Luckily, the bloke I was neck and neck with at this point (from North Shields Poly) had made the same mistake.
Very warm today, and what little wind there was always seemed to be against us!
By the time I got to the five mile mark I had pulled away from the North Shields bloke and was third behind Adam Fletcher in second and Ian Harding of Morpeth who was probably back and changed by this time.
Sadly, the route did not follow a bus route and I was just going to have to run to the finish!
Luckily though the last mile was fast and pretty much down hill so I just went tonto.
Got in in 38:23.

Great wee race and one that's a nice precursor to the Borders XC in a few weeks.