This is a local race (the start is about 1.5 miles from our front door) and I’ve run it the previous five years, with this being my sixth time. What can I say - it’s a great course, great support, great marshals and great weather (so far).
So, at 10am I was on the start line ready to see how my legs would cope with 10 miles of hard effort, especially after a surprise 18.02 time at Frimley Lodge parkrun yesterday (which doesn’t really lend itself to fast times). I’d not planned to run that hard but had a couple of people were breathing down my neck and that spurred me on.
Anyway, back to today. Ignoring whoever was around me (there were about 60 runners from Ranelagh Harriers in the race) and just going at my own pace I started off and settled into a pace around 6:15 minute miling. This would get me over the finish line in 1:02:30 which I’d be really happy with, compared to my previous years times…
- 2006 - 1:11:47
- 2007 - 1:03:09
- 2008 - 1:06:02
- 2009 - 1:02:22
- 2010 - 1:11:48 (was part of a much longer run)
After two or three miles I was running around 6:12 pace on average and thought I’d just try and stick to it. The first half should feel fairly ‘steady’ which it did and I crossed the 5 mile marker in 31:11 - bang on my PB pace. I knew the second half would get much tougher, especially when I’d not trained for this race any way whatsoever (my current training is more about going longer and slower as part of my marathon/Ironman prep) so this could get interesting.
Looking at my GPS I went through 10km in 38:31 (28 seconds slower than PB pace). Interesting…
During the second half of the race I think I kept myself together very well. Only three people overtook me - one from The Stragglers running club, a Thames Turbo Triathlon Club member and just before the 9 mile mark it was Ranelagh Harriers clubmate Sean P. who drifted past.
I pushed on as hard as I could through to the finish where I crossed the line in 1:01:56 - giving me a new personal best time over the distance by 26 seconds. I also managed to negative split the race (first five miles was 31:11, the second five was 30:45). I finished in 125th place overall (there was some really quick times ran this morning) and my age grading was 73.95%.
A good mornings race, that’s for sure.