Before I went to bed last night I had a bit of a stomach ache and didn’t feel great. I had an absolutely terrible nights sleep and woke up feeling really rough - not a good sign for the Valentines 10k road race. It was a fairly early start - 9am race so breakfast at about 6:45am - and for the first time in living memory I couldn’t eat all of my porridge! That didn’t bode well at all.
Perhaps once the race started I’d be feeling a little better and my warm up was fairly average - I didn’t feel terrible but didn’t feel great. This was clearly going to be a ‘just get round’ race for me. The first 3 or 4 km’s went fairly well and I got to the halfway point at about 19:20, and from then on my stomach tightened up and started grumbling! I watched about 10 people drift past me in the second half and I just took it easy to get me round in one place - as the last thing I wanted to do was scramble into someone’s front garden for an al-fresco toilet break!
Sharon was watching about 600m from the finish and could see that I wasn’t having a great run. I made to the finish inside of 40 minutes (official time pending but I think it was about 39:52) which I was happy with considering how I felt- especially when in May 2007 I fought hard to just get under 40 minutes and today I didn’t have to push hard to get a similar time. Post race everyone gets a t-shirt and a For Goodness Shakes recovery milkshake. Now, these are my favourite recovery drink after runner and I couldn’t even drink mine. Anyone who runs will me will know that not having my milkshake means I must be ill!
fter heading home I spent the rest of the day in bed. It was a real shame as my marathon training plan told me to race this one all-out and I was feeling good about it on Saturday. My current 10k best is 38:57 and I felt I should have been able to better this time today.
Champion of the day has to be friend Darren W., who’s previous 10k best time was over 40 minutes (although he’s gone sub-40 in half-marathon races) and he stormed home just in just under 37 minutes. Absolutely superb stuff mate.