Fast!
Another Sunday, another 10k. This time, the Rothwell 10k. This is quite a big local race that is part of some Yorkshire championship or other for clubs. It's reputed to be a real PB course (30 metre net descent from start to finish), and filled up a couple of weeks ago so is pretty popular.
Last night I was seriously considering not turning up. I didn't fancy an evening of staying off the wine, having an early night, and I didn't fancy getting up early, making my lunch to eat between the race and the rugby, potentially going to the rugby all sweaty etc etc. All pathetic excuses, but between those and the vague arrival of TOM, I was feeling lazy.
But I forced myself to turn up, and was then shocked by the proportion of club runners there. Most of the races I've run so far have been charity events which club runners run. Maybe organised with the help of a running club, but with a good field of unattached runners. This time it seemed different, with big groups milling around the start from pretty much every local club. There seemed to be fewer people running without a club vest than in the other races I've done. I actually felt like it would be nice to be part of a club, which I've never felt before. Maybe I might get round to turning up to one of the club training sessions to see whether I like it.
My target was under 50 minutes. I managed just over 50 minutes for the "challening" Fountains Abbey 10k, and I knew that this course was meant to be fast. But on the other hand, I haven't done that much speed training since Fountains. I did my 5k race, then mum came over and I've just kept myself ticking over. Plus I'd already done 24 miles or so this week which, despite not running for the past 2 days, made me wonder whether I'd have enough energy in my legs to get round the course in a good time. So the target was sub 50, but with no particular target for how much under I wanted to be.
I positioned myself not too badly at the start. Some people overtook me, I overtook other people, but I wasn't right at tha back or right at the front, and finished fairly close to some of the other people I started near. For the first time I ran without my iPod, and it was interesting how hearing other people talking changed my experience of the race. Whether it was feeling pathetic to be worrying about my 12.5 mile on Monday when I hear other people talking about running the London Marathon on Sunday and then doing this one too, or hearing people talking about aiming for 52 minutes and speeding up to overtake them, it really did make it a different experience.
I didn't see any km markers before 4k. I'm sure they were there, but they didn't register. At about 15 minutes I was starting to feel like I was maybe going a lot faster than normal, confirmed when someone near me said that the bridge we'd gone under a minute or so before was 2 miles. I was only aiming for 8 minute miles! I passed the 4k marker at about 18 minutes, and 5k at about 23. My fastest ever 5k previously had been very marginally under 24 minutes on the treadmill (and slightly over in my last 5k race). I started to worry at this stage that I'd gone off too fast. It turns out from reading other people's experiences that the first half of the course is faster than the second half, but I knew that I had to take it a bit easier to avoid blowing up in the later stages of the race. I knew that if I ran the last 5k at my pre-race target pace (5 minutes per km) I'd still manage to come in at a well below target 48 minutes, so I spent the next few km trying to go at a more comfortable pace and holding on without resorting to a walk.
I really wanted to walk at about 6k, but I guess I've now got that experience. I know that I can comfortably do the distance, and I know that walking will just drag it out for longer because I'll have to start running again at some point. So I just kept on. I always set myself little challenges in races, picking out people I want to beat, or I want to keep in sight if I can't catch them. For a couple of km from about 7 to 9 I was running stride for stride with a bloke. If I went faster, so did he. I doubt he wanted to be beaten by a girl... There were also a couple of women behind me I wanted to stay ahead of. At about 9km one of the women behind overtook me, having separated from her friend for a final sprint to the line. I couldn't keep up with her. But as I and the bloke by me overtook someone else, the person we were overtaking asked the bloke how long we'd been running. As he slowed to answer, this was my chance. I pushed on and got some daylight in between us. I also heard the other woman I'd been trying to keep behind me coming up and closing the gap, so I decided to go for one final push to the finish and ran as fast as I could.
Having been running at pretty much 5 minutes per km from 5 - 9, I found a bit of speed from somewhere and finished in...
47:44
That's quite some way under my sub 50 target! I couldn't believe that I'd run so fast, it's by far faster than I've ever managed before, even in my 5k race just a few weeks ago.
Some stats. Overall I was 384/705, in women I was 67/235 and in women under 35 I was 20/61 (from these results). And even better, the Runners World race time calculator now estimates my marathon time as 3:39! Good for Age, here I come (possibly)!
Last night I was seriously considering not turning up. I didn't fancy an evening of staying off the wine, having an early night, and I didn't fancy getting up early, making my lunch to eat between the race and the rugby, potentially going to the rugby all sweaty etc etc. All pathetic excuses, but between those and the vague arrival of TOM, I was feeling lazy.
But I forced myself to turn up, and was then shocked by the proportion of club runners there. Most of the races I've run so far have been charity events which club runners run. Maybe organised with the help of a running club, but with a good field of unattached runners. This time it seemed different, with big groups milling around the start from pretty much every local club. There seemed to be fewer people running without a club vest than in the other races I've done. I actually felt like it would be nice to be part of a club, which I've never felt before. Maybe I might get round to turning up to one of the club training sessions to see whether I like it.
My target was under 50 minutes. I managed just over 50 minutes for the "challening" Fountains Abbey 10k, and I knew that this course was meant to be fast. But on the other hand, I haven't done that much speed training since Fountains. I did my 5k race, then mum came over and I've just kept myself ticking over. Plus I'd already done 24 miles or so this week which, despite not running for the past 2 days, made me wonder whether I'd have enough energy in my legs to get round the course in a good time. So the target was sub 50, but with no particular target for how much under I wanted to be.
I positioned myself not too badly at the start. Some people overtook me, I overtook other people, but I wasn't right at tha back or right at the front, and finished fairly close to some of the other people I started near. For the first time I ran without my iPod, and it was interesting how hearing other people talking changed my experience of the race. Whether it was feeling pathetic to be worrying about my 12.5 mile on Monday when I hear other people talking about running the London Marathon on Sunday and then doing this one too, or hearing people talking about aiming for 52 minutes and speeding up to overtake them, it really did make it a different experience.
I didn't see any km markers before 4k. I'm sure they were there, but they didn't register. At about 15 minutes I was starting to feel like I was maybe going a lot faster than normal, confirmed when someone near me said that the bridge we'd gone under a minute or so before was 2 miles. I was only aiming for 8 minute miles! I passed the 4k marker at about 18 minutes, and 5k at about 23. My fastest ever 5k previously had been very marginally under 24 minutes on the treadmill (and slightly over in my last 5k race). I started to worry at this stage that I'd gone off too fast. It turns out from reading other people's experiences that the first half of the course is faster than the second half, but I knew that I had to take it a bit easier to avoid blowing up in the later stages of the race. I knew that if I ran the last 5k at my pre-race target pace (5 minutes per km) I'd still manage to come in at a well below target 48 minutes, so I spent the next few km trying to go at a more comfortable pace and holding on without resorting to a walk.
I really wanted to walk at about 6k, but I guess I've now got that experience. I know that I can comfortably do the distance, and I know that walking will just drag it out for longer because I'll have to start running again at some point. So I just kept on. I always set myself little challenges in races, picking out people I want to beat, or I want to keep in sight if I can't catch them. For a couple of km from about 7 to 9 I was running stride for stride with a bloke. If I went faster, so did he. I doubt he wanted to be beaten by a girl... There were also a couple of women behind me I wanted to stay ahead of. At about 9km one of the women behind overtook me, having separated from her friend for a final sprint to the line. I couldn't keep up with her. But as I and the bloke by me overtook someone else, the person we were overtaking asked the bloke how long we'd been running. As he slowed to answer, this was my chance. I pushed on and got some daylight in between us. I also heard the other woman I'd been trying to keep behind me coming up and closing the gap, so I decided to go for one final push to the finish and ran as fast as I could.
Having been running at pretty much 5 minutes per km from 5 - 9, I found a bit of speed from somewhere and finished in...
47:44
That's quite some way under my sub 50 target! I couldn't believe that I'd run so fast, it's by far faster than I've ever managed before, even in my 5k race just a few weeks ago.
Some stats. Overall I was 384/705, in women I was 67/235 and in women under 35 I was 20/61 (from these results). And even better, the Runners World race time calculator now estimates my marathon time as 3:39! Good for Age, here I come (possibly)!
posted by YP at 7:43 PM
1 Comments:
wow! well done speedy gonzales! great stuff :)
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