Sharon and I are second claim members of The Stragglers running club and on Thursday evening it was their annual 10k members only race. I’ve not run this before (I think I was working away last year) and hadn’t run a 10k since the Bognor Prom race in May. My recent running has been on form and I entered this with the aim of going at least sub-40 minutes - even though the course isn’t particularly fast.

Now when I say not fast I mean it - much of the race is held on the towpath running beside the Thames and after a downpour of rain in the afternoon there were big puddles everywhere. For much of the towpath I spent my time dodging the larger of the puddles which clearly slowed me down.

Once again I set off too fast, but soon brought that back under control. The first 4k I was in a small group of runners but managed to edge ahead and I kept my position for the remainder of the race. I ran through the 5k mark in about 19:10 and with the second half of the race being mostly on the towpath keeping that pace was going to be tough. I ran hard, but not quite maximum effort (albeit damn close) and I crossed the finish line in 38:55 - a 2 second personal best over this distance. My overall position was 16th out of 94. For info the winner finished in 33:47. Full results are available at the Sport Systems website.

I’m very pleased with this (as I should be) and look forward to running 10k over a more favourable course.