Ten kilometer races are funny things aren’t they? I guess maybe a lot of people get into running with 5 and 10k races but that’s not the route I came. My first race as an adult was the Hangzhou half marathon. In actual fact before this weekend I’d only run two competitive (ish) 10ks.
The first was a very competitive club run in Newcastle back on January 1, 2008 that I some how stumbled into with realizing what it was. I came in 94th out of 100 finishers. I’ve actually just now found that out (first time I went to look). At the time I was convinced that everyone behind me was a DNF. Insult was added to (psychological) injury by the fact that this was the first event I’d run in the UK for something like 20 years and therefore the first time my Mum was in the crowd. It was a disastrous start to what was supposed to be a year of running, to celebrate turning 30, that stumbled from one disaster to another. Time: 61:05 on a soggy and somewhat hilly course.
The second was the PIMS 10k in Prague back in 2010. Which I just turned up and ran without really thinking about, let alone preparing for. Time: 56:06.
Given this history it was with some trepidation that I set myself the goal of actually setting a time at the Nike We Run Prague 10k this year. I even managed to drag myself to the gym to force my unwilling legs through tempo runs once a week for the last month or two.
Nike had issued t-shirts with running numbers printed on them (I’m not sure I like this idea) and runners were offered the opportunity to put a club name or motto on the back. We went with Even If It Rains which ticks both boxes. Not reading the backs of the shirts was a bit like trying not read subtitles on the telly – hard. The chosen phrases ranged from the down-right offensive to the rather witty but in the end I had twee-aphorism-fatgiue from reading them all the way round.
As seems to be a feature of big 10k events, there was a lot of gratuitous pushing and shoving and otherwise unfriendly conduct, tsk, tsk. I’m sure the two clowns who collided in front of me in the water stop and knocked themselves, and very nearly me, to the ground were not the only two who did so. They certainly proved that it’s not possible to grab-water, drink-water, eat a banana, regain the racing line all at the same time while not looking you’re going and travelling at full-pelt. In case you didn’t know.
The target, then, when I signed up for this race was to come in under 50 minutes but by race day I wasn’t optimistic. While I’ve been easily running 4:30 kilomoters in the gym I couldn’t seem to get below 5 minute kilometers on the road. I set off running with A who pulled me through the first couple of kilometers faster than I ought to be going, such that when I pulled back at about 4k and let him go it was a relief to be only running 4:55. This had given me a little bit of a buffer but I was concious of not wanting to squander it. In the end I managed to run all ten of the kilometers under 5:00 and was positively cock-a-hoop to come in at 48:23.
According to garmin I ran at average of 95% of my max heart rate and maxed out at 98% of my maximum. Which, whether accurate or not, at least suggests I was trying.
Next up, my first Great North Run which I’m running with my Dad. We’re running to raise money for the Children’s Foundation, which funds research which helps Children everywhere and also has a local impact by funding projects including the Great North Children’s Hospital. You can sponsor us!
Update: Nike have kindly provided some photos they took of me which are shared on flickr.
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