I’ve now run the Cabbage Patch 10 mile road race for the past five years in a row. Prior to this years race my times are as follows…
- 2006 - 1:11:47
- 2007 - 1:03:09
- 2008 - 1:06:02
- 2009 - 1:02:22
This year I chose not to race as I’m planning on getting a marathon in before the end of the year and I wanted to do a long run this past weekend. I couldn’t miss the Cabbage Patch 10 as its such a good event so chose to treat it as the second half of a much longer run. The plan was to get around 10 miles in beforehand and then run the race at my planned marathon pace. This would make it a fairly tough 20 mile run, but with the slightly easier first 10 miles the toll on my body and subsequent recovery shouldn’t be as bad as trying to run it all at marathon pace.
I set off from home just before 8:45am and ran most of the route in reverse. I said hello to a few marshals and made it to the official race start at 9:56am. My 9.4 mile ‘warm-up’ was run at 7:40 minute miling. After a few minutes wait the race started and I soon settled into a steady pace just a few seconds slower than 7 minute miling.
Photo: Simon Finch
From here on it was just running steady and comfortably for 10 miles - making sure I said thanks to all the marshals (as I wasn’t busting a gut and out of breath!) and enjoying the ‘race.’
I stuck to my plan and only really sped up during the last mile when my GPS clocked me at 6:59 miling. I crossed the line in 1 hour 11 minutes 48 seconds, a whole second slower than my first ‘appearance’ in 2006. An easy jog to where Sharon was marshalling and my running for the day was over - a total of 20.5 miles.
As my time was practically the same as in 2006 I had a little dig through my records. In 2006 my average heart rate was 175bpm, this year it was 156bpm. That is a pretty good improvement I’d say - especially after my 9.4 mile warm up (which averaged 144bpm). I also wondered how much heavier I was back then and I was pretty much the same weight - about 12 stone 12 pounds (81.5kg).
Once again a superb morning out.