The Ealing Mile takes place on the first Friday of each month in Lammas Park on an accurately measured course. The event has been up and running for a few months but work conflicts meant that I had not been able to make any of the previous monthly lunchtime races. The September race fell on a day where I could work from home so I promptly registered and was looking forward to another crack at such an iconic distance.
I nearly didn’t make it thanks to a big bag of FAIL on my part. I was in bit of a rush to leave so didn’t notice when I grabbed my keys, my house keys were sadly missing from my trusty key ring. I had been out running the night before and separated the keys and must have been in doofus mode because I did not attach them back together as per standard Running Dan post-run procedure.
There I was standing outside my house in the rain with just my running kit, car key and a rain jacket designed for light rain. Oh – I also managed to forget my mobile as well! Double bag of FAIL with a side order of DOOFUS. I had a race to get to, run and then somehow get back home for a conference call. I realised that The Son has a set of house keys since he now walks home by himself so I quickly drove to his school and the very kind office assistant accompanied me to his bag where I was able to retrieve his set of keys.
I did make it to the park in time for the warm-up and then we were away racing in the park. I had run the route once before as part of a club mile relay competition and this time around I eyed up a faster runner who I could hopefully attach myself to as a pacer. Unfortunately he pulled up with a sore hamstring so I was out there by myself in terms of pacing and I did not hit my preferred pace but I did manage to take 1 second off my mile PB.
This is a great little event to get a timed mile against other runners and next month it should be an officially accredited race so results will appear on the power of 10 web site. Cracking stuff.
I also managed to make it home on time for my conference call.
