Race Date: 17^th November 2024

If you haven’t seen Abbie Pearse at Cross Country often recently this is because she has been on the road setting new pb’s, breaking club records and generally raising the profile of the club. Abbie’s latest race was at the Derby Ten mile where she broke the club record two years ago and again received a free elite entry. The course wasn’t popular last time out due to its gravel path sections but some of this has now been relaid with tarmac and now lives up to its fast and flat billing.

With a sub sixty target Abbie describes what happened during the race. “I estimated what pace I could hold for an hour and decided 5:50 min/mile was realistic. At mile three, when it felt harder than it should have, it was apparent that I had been running at 5:40 pace. Big mistake. Running with a nice little pack (of men), out loud I announced that I had messed up on the pace! One of them, (Hallamshire’s Phil Cooper who has been doing Thursday track sessions with us recently. Coach will have a word with the pair of you. Ed.) admitted that he ought to be doing 5:50’s too. We therefore dropped off the group before the lactic acid caught up with us and worked well until six miles, which was nice. It got pretty hard from seven onwards but I hung on and finished second woman in 58.11 (average 5:49.1 for each mile). Obviously very happy with performance (a pb and lowering her own club record) despite the pace chart aesthetics.”

After the race it was back on the bike to the train station and a direct journey home.

With a string of fine performances this year, including a silver team medal in the Inter-Counties Cross Country, we asked Abbie what has changed in her training? The reply was basically not a lot. Whilst the mileage may have gradually increased the regular pattern of two speed sessions each week (one during race week) and the long run has been the basic framework for the past five years. Any improvement has come from the accumulation of consistency over the years. (Echoing nearly every coaching book that you may have ever read. Ed.)

With three other Steel City racing, the women’s race was won by GB International Naomi Mitchell (Birmingham Tri) with 56:29. Whilst results aren’t up on Power Of 10 yet, we think that Abbie’s performance places her 11^th on the UK rankings this year. Leading the men home was David Bishop (Derby) in 50:18.