JCB Lakeside 5: first race number

Five miles. Not a marathon, not even a half — but it’s the first line in the race record, and every plan needs a first line.

I lined up with no real idea what pace to go out at. The Lakeside course loops out past JCB’s own machinery, arched over the start line, which is as good a place as any to remember why this whole thing started: seven marathons is a big number to say out loud, so the plan has always been to make it a series of much smaller numbers first.

50:22 for the 5 miles. Not fast, not slow — honest. I went out a little too hard on the first mile and paid for it by the fourth, which is exactly the kind of pacing mistake I’d rather make now, on a 5-mile Sunday morning, than in November on a half marathon course, or later on a marathon course somewhere much further from home.

What it actually did was make the majors stop being an abstract idea. There’s a difference between “I want to run seven marathons one day” and standing at a start line with a number pinned to your shirt, lungs burning, watching the clock. This was the second one. There will be a lot more between now and the first major.

Next up: the Alton Towers Half Marathon in November, and the eighteen weeks of training between here and there.