7:40 and decided it was hard !
That last 15 miles was relentless.
I'm doing Cumberland Challenge next month and that has the last 20 or so miles flat/rolling at the end so you can either get some speed up or just crawl in, whichever state you're in. Polka Dot is similar, last 20m is a time-trial run in.
But this one didn't seem to want to give up ! Just had a succession of steep ups and downs at the end.
I didn't get into any groups, didn't see any (other than the Dave Lloyd twosome and I wasn't going to try to tag onto the back of that) and a big mixed-up Liverpool posse (about three different clubs, saw them at the last feedstop, left before they did and they didn't catch me for me to tag-on), so ended-up doing the whole ride alone, which doubtless made it harder work, on top of the heat.
- my computer showed 35C at one point, no wonder I felt blitzed...
Thought the on-the-day organisation was superb : friendly people, lots of food, challenging route.
Perhaps the signs would have been a bit more obvious on yellow rather than white, had a few anxious moments where I thought I'd gone wrong but hadn't.
And for some reason the marshal directed me around the route rather than into the first feedstop, so I was getting seriously short of water by the second stop, where I shifted a litre and a half !
I'm taking it a bit easy this week, running a 5K on Thursday night...