Milestone 2 - the Tadworth 10 miler

Today I ran the Tadworth 10 mile race in the Epsom Downes (read NOT flat) in 1hr 56 mins. I had a really good race - felt strong, confident, even happy until mile 8 at which point muscles started aching rather badly. All in all, the race felt much easier than the one I did in 2008, unfortunately I did not manage to beat that time (i ran 2 mins faster last time). I don't quite understand why as it felt much easier (and I ran up ALL the hills which I was unable to do before). Maybe it's down to weight and the fact that last time I only stopped rowing 3 months earlier and maybe I still had much more strength in my leg muscles?
I went home and laid down in an icecold bath (well just my lower extremeties) for 10 mins before having a nice boiling hot shower. Apparently the cold bath is supposed to aid a speedy recovery - I'll let you know whether it works in the coming days.