So predictably, against all advice I trotted down to St Pauls last night to do the 3.5 mile Crisis Square Mile race. It's a fun little event, but as others have already pointed out: there's no way it was only 3.5miles. I can't give a measurement of my own as my pesky Garmin crashed and fully froze immediately before the race - AGAIN! (Just like it did before the Kingston Breakfast Run - very irritating), but I spoke to several people afterwards who all seem to have measured it out at well over 4 miles.

It was only a fun run anyway and as there was no official timing other than the clock at the finish so I guess the distance didn't matter. There was a big turn out and a good atmosphere at the start although it definitely felt more like a corporate event than a running event. 

I was a bit nervous about running on my gammy leg as it was still a bit painful while I was warming up, but what the hell, I was there now, in my special event T-shirt, what was I going to do - I might as well just go for it. I was running with two friends, Dave (who I think once appeared briefly in this blog as 'Scooter Dave') and Matt. Dave is a pretty experienced runner and was expecting to run 7 minute miles, so too fast for me, and Matt was running in his first race having started training for the New York Marathon in November. He's already really well ahead of schedule with that, so he was wanting to see what he could do. I wasn't sure how fast I'd be able to go, but set off quickly anyway. The first mile was well under 7 minutes according to Dave, which was a bit stupid, so I hung back.

It's a funny course with really a lot of steps and littered with slightly bemused tourists/office workers and general nice-evening-on-the-south-bank-amblers so lots of bobbing and weaving to be done. The only mile marker I saw the whole way round was 2 miles as I was coming back along the south bank. The main thing was that I didn't get too much extra pain from my leg once it warmed up - although I did start to feel my silly start pace as I headed back towards Southwark bridge back on the north Emankment. It was hard going and still seemed like there was a long way to go, given how long ago I'd passed that 2 mile point, but I plodded on and finally started the last of 4 river crossings over the Millenium bridge - which wasn't at all bouncy. I tried to use up my last bit of energy in a little bit of a sprint finish, but it was really narrow so impossible to pass anyone running more slowly so it was a bit of a crap, stilted sprint. Matt had finished about a minute and a half before me, but had still managed to get round to the barriers to shout encouragement as I crossed the line / make sure I knew that he'd already finished - which made me laugh a little. My time was just over 32 mins minus around 30secs to get over the start, so 31 something. No Garmin, so that's as accurate as I could be.

Sore leg immediately afterwards, really painful at one point in fact, and I began to dread that it was going to be another horror story aftermath, but I stretched and gave it a really good rub with dollups of ibuprophen gel and things seemed to improve.  It was nice to say hello to Jon Simmonds again too - we spotted eachother as I was mid leg-rub but still managed a chat. He'd been doing the corporate challenge thing with a team from his work, so was trotting off for a pub session.

We ended up in the nearest one as we didn't have a lot of time, but I have a funny feeling that standing around outside the pub for nearly an hour may have done my leg some good. Perhaps that was just the anesthetising qualities of a couple of lagers..?

In the end the important result is that although I'm limping a bit today, I'm not feeling half as debilitated as I did after last week's race. Fingers crossed then, with a good long rest, I might be ready to start running again in July and back in proper training by the end of the summer.

Tags: Crisis Square Mile run, shin splints, injury, fun run, London

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