Leeds Half - hmmmm...

Leeds Half for me today - bit of a tough day at the office.  Set off with Justin P, speedy clubmate, but let him go after about 10 yards (literally - I ended up with a sub-6 mile and he was miles away!).  Slightly disturbed to see my HR up above 155 during the first mile, but I think this cold that is still very definitely with me caused that.  Never felt under pressure but just didn't seem to have the legs or the inclination today.  Managed 39:58 for the first (hilly) 10k, but knew that to get under 85 (with which I had said I'd be pleased) I was going to have to run a negative split - which isn't too hard as the second half is generally downhill.

Kept thinking I really ought to push on, but by now we were on the downhill bit and I managed to convince myself that 6:20 pace would do.  I had thought that my marathon stamina would enable me to knock out a fast 5k to finish, but in the event my cold had other ideas and in between coughing up lumps of gelatinous material the colour of a Rothwell vest I was back down at almost 6:30 by the finish and whilst I wasn't being passed by many I'd stopped catching folk.

In the end I ran 1:24:00 on the chip (1:24:04 on the gun) and have to be happy with that - 2 minutes slower than last year, but conditions must've been tougher as I was 53rd last year and only dropped to 58th with a much slower time, plus my HR and my nose were telling me I'm still a bit cold-bound.  I was also within 40 seconds of my speedy mate who's run sub-80 this year, so all in all a satisfactory day but not sure whether I could/should have gone quicker.  I'm also very happy with the position - it's not the highest quality field, but top 60 out of 3,000 or so, and 6th M45 are ok.

It just feels like I was holding back at times, perhaps because subconsciously I'd decided I'd be happy enough with sub-85.  It's a shame my HRM had a dicky fit again as I'd like to see how hard I was working at times - I've got another load of 220+ spikes that make the data pretty useless.