Bury Nearly 10 Race Nowton Park Bury St Edmunds Suffolk

10.30 am 9.4 miles in 1 hour 13 minutes 27 seconds.

Week to date mileage 27

Month to date mileage 105

Average weekly rate 30.8

Average Monthly rate 134

Lifetime mileage 8029

After my recent back problems I was just pleased to make the start line to take part in the Bury Nearly 10.

Most starters were taking part in the Bury 20 as prep for London but I feel that distance is beyond me at present and I am not sure even if I actually want to race that far again. Anyway the odd distance of 9 miles and 703 yards must put a lot of people of who might consider doing this event. I am told it is equal to 9.4 miles.

The venue for the start is at Nowton Park at the Lime Avenue. The weather was numbingly cold and I decided to run with gloves, thermal top and trackster bottoms.

I set of apparently far to quick as I reached the first mile marker in 7.07 but at 2 miles I had slipped to 15.35! Either I slowed dramatically or I suspect the mile markers may have been wrongly placed. At 3 miles my time was 22.42 or 7.34 pace. The course had several up and down hill stretches so getting an even pace was difficult on this course.

At 5 miles the 20 mile runners carried straight on towards Lawshall whilst the smaller group of 10 milers turned left on our way home. The route took us through Nowton, High Green, Pinford En, Mickley Green , Melon Green, Hawstead and back to Nowton.

The wind became increasingly strong on the return section particularly on a very exposed section on a long up hill drag before Nowton. This really takes the stuffing out of you.

When I looked at my split times at the end of the race I found that throughout the race my times varied considerably from an 8.22 to 7.07.

I was generally happy with my finishing time considering the weather conditions, the hills and my back problems.

My time was equivalent to 7.49 miles

which wasn't as good as my time at the hadleigh 10 when I ran 7.44 or the Scenic 7 when I ran 7.31 miles.

It was an improvement on my time at the Lakenheath 5 and it is early in the season so plenty of time for improvement.



I will post some more photos from the race on my flickr site.

Well done to all the marshalls and organisers.