Essex 20 - Race Report

 It has now been a week since my race at the Essex 20.  It was a tough morning's work, and I think it has caught up with me now.  I booked this race before realising it was on Mother's Day, and it will likely fall on that weekend in the future, so I may have to swerve it for the foreseeable. It's a pity becauase it's timing as preparation for a spring marathon is pretty perfect.  

The course itself definitely has a high boredeom factor, five laps of a four-mile circuit around an airfield, but that familiarity and rhythm is useful for pacing yourself and also means you are never far away from the loos, or your car for a resupply.  Thankfully I didn't require either, but it was a comfort to know it was there if needed.

The race was a half nine start and was a decent drive from home, I wished Lauren a happy Mother's Day and left the house about half seven getting to the airfield and parked with plenty of time to spare.  I got to meet up with Charlotte who was also running, in preparation for Edinburgh Marathon which comes a month after London.  We had a nice chat before the start, I then went for a short warm-up whilst she went to see her clubmates.

The race got underway on time with the 500 or so runners heading out on their opening lap.  It is a strong field, the race doubles up as the county championships and is very club runner heavy.  With the looped course you were never far from company but also had plenty of space to run which I like.  

Given it is on an airfield you might expect a good surface but there were plenty of potholes to avoid and so there were big stretches of eyes on the floor and being wary where you placed your feet.  The conditions were good, the temperature was near perfect and it was dry, the one condition working against us was the wind.  Strava tells me it was 12mph, but it felt stronger than that and definitely picked up in the second half of the race.  The early section of the lap was sheltered by trees but there was a long straight once you come out of that and it felt like a block headwind to me.  It was there early on the fourth lap that I had my first walk break.

I ran this race in 2023 totally untrained when I completed it in 4:06 with 2:15 of it spent walking but walking was definitely not on my 2026 race plan given the good six-month block of training I have been able to put together.  In the end I was able to keep the walking contained to 13 minutes.  Here are my five-mile splits:

• 41:14 (Total 41:14) 8:15 min/miles (5:08min/km)
• 42:07 (Total 1:23:21) 8:25 min/miles (5:14min/km)
• 43:55 (Total 2:07:17) 8:47 min/miles (5:27min/km)
• 49:11 (Total 2:56:28) 9:50 min/miles (6:07min/km)
• 1:31 (Total 2:57:59) 7:15 min/miles (4:30min/km)

As you can see my pace faded section by section before a 90 second sprint for the finish line.  

The section 1 to 2 fade is ok, it will largely be explained by a couple of excitable opening miles.  The section 2 to 3 fade is contained in miles 14 and 15 where I walked.  That fourth section is the run when you can, walk if you can't section.  What a slog that was.   Then a satisfying run to the finish over the final 400 metres or so.

I was relieved to complete the race and there were definitely moments that I could happily have pulled the plug, but the one area I consistently miss are the long runs and so it was good to get a 20 miler in the bank, even if portions of it were walked.  It also allowed me to test out my nutrition, I had four gels through the race, and for some reason opted for no liquids of any kind which might have been an error.  

It is a tough pill to swallow but my time target for London will need to be revised downwards off the back of this.  From the 3:30-3:34 I had hoped to run and earning a PB in the process to something more like 3:50-4:00.  Given the six months training I have managed to put together that is frustrating, but I need to keep my eye on the summer of 2028 timeline and use this six months as the strong building block that it is.

I have run lower mileage this week and all of it has been easy.  Despite that my body is still bust up.  Tightness in my lower back and left calf, something isn't quite right in my right quad.  Ontop of which I woke up Sunday morning with a sore throat that is worsening.  I just want to try and stay calm about it, I hope to be running strong again by the end of this week.  I can then have a good two weeks of hard training before the long overdue taper down prior to the race.  The Essex 20 was a reality check, but I'm still in good shape.  I ran a 1:42 half marathon just three weeks ago and as long as my body doesn't break, London should be a very special race.  Onwards and upwards.