How hard do you try?

[Stolly]

Just a thought and something to ponder..... this is a question 'ive often asked myself, and i'm sure a lot of other runners do to? When Im running in a race, I suppose im running as hard as I can all the time, but actually that cannot be the case, as often I get to the end and im not really that knackered, so im thinking maybe I haven't been putting it all in.

But during the race at any given point I never think to myself, ' I can run this bit faster' or 'speed up rev your not trying hard enough', but like I said on countless occasions I get to the finish and think 'you should've ran harder in the first few mile' or whenever. Is this a common thing with fell running, that you coast through the race, and get to the end thinkning you could have ran harder? It happened yesterday, I lost concentration for a couple of mile and a few people got past me, but the last few mile I ran like the clappers and finished very strongly with a lot more to give, so im thinking I should have tried harder throughout the race. One day im going to try and finish a race foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath, veins popping out everywhere......

Do others think they give everything during a race?

I think I always put my best effort in during races and its the terrain that dictates quite how that effort pans out into performance. For sure the first couple of miles are always hard work but, after that, I kind of get into the rythm and it doesn't hurt so much; I'm not sure I'd want to use the 'not hurting so much' as a reason to try and speed up though. Fell races by their nature have faster finishes than starts most of the time (usually up then down) and obviously the down hill bits can seem easier, even if you're at full pelt. I also think the High Cup Nick on Saturday was the absolute perfect race for an 'easy' finish, given that it has that super last 4 miles. On my garmin I was absolutely flying for the last two miles see here and at the time could've done with the route being longer as I was fast catching up some of the runners in front of me