At the break of dawn on Sunday morning I headed to Bluewater chauffeured by spectator extraordinaire Laura arriving quite early we popped over to see Chris D of the Sports Clinic my leg magician! He was chatting about his session with Iwan Thomas the night before which I was aware about because of twitter and also setting up for a busy mornings of rubs.

We then wandered around the start area and bumped into Iwan ourselves, he was there on behalf of Gatorade, one of his sponsors and also the race sponsor. We have met a few times in the past, most recently at the London Marathon. Laura also knew him through her Tv job with ItPaysToWatch. He’s a good chuckle and is always very welcoming to everyone – good to see. He had done the Blenheim Tri the day before and was going to go easy, concerned his legs wouldn’t work for him. I knew however that Chris would have sorted them out the night before…!

At 8:30 the race started, it’s an early one to allow all the roads to be re-opened in time for the shopping centre to open for 11. The weather was pretty good for running, especially considering the heat over the previous few days. With full cloud coverage and the fact it was early all was good on that front! As I said, I have run this before a couple of times, the route hasn’t changed so fortunately (or not) I know exactly what is going to happen, this should be a help for me but it doesn’t seem to be…!

Undulating is the best description of the race profile. There doesn’t seem to be much flat at all from start to finish. The start is on a down which leads you into a false security and for people with no concept of pace, read me, it can go tits up from the start…

My splits were all over the place, I suspect I went out too quick only to suffer during the middle hilly section. I hung on for dear life in sections of the run close to throwing in the towel on some of the ups but fortunately shorty after what seemed like an eternal up section was a down to recover on

I’d be interested to see, based on that run how I’d do on a flat course now. In Manchester I was always going to be slow. I’d barely run for weeks prior and before that I had obviously done more endurance work but following a couple of weeks of faster sessions I picked the pace up. However, perhaps the hills work for me, boosting my speed enough during the downs to really make a difference…who knows and as I don’t have another 10k lined up for a while I won’t find out any time soon!

Following the run I took the opportunity to have a £10 for 15 minutes sports massage organised by Chris. Nice way to finish the morning off!

Till next time

N

It rained and it rained a lot

I would say on the build up to this race my training, if you can call it that, had been pretty minimal. I haven’t covered too many miles since the London Mara and the miles I did run were SLOW. In fact I think I only did one fast(ish) run pre race. Therefore my expectations weren’t too great and I’m not going to lie I was verbal about this. I knew for a fact that no PBs were going to be hit on race day, it just wasn’t realistic.

Having collected my number on the Saturday (see  post) I was ready to run. I have never run this event before but I can honestly say it’s massive! 38000 people doing a 10km race, that’s more people than what turn up for the London Marathon. They had several waves to start people off and I assume in my wisdom when I signed up I said I would target my PB. Therefore I was put in the first pen with sub 50min runners.

The starting pace was brisk, I had hoped to keep up with Sam and maybe out pace her like at Stockport but it wasn’t going to happen and less than 1k in she was gone – to quick for me today. Now it was about hanging on, a challenge in itself as I had barely covered the distance in weeks. Head down, dig in.

Somehow I managed to hold on and finish the race in 44:40, quite how im not entirely sure. I’m not going to lie I didn’t think much of the scenery on what is commonly regarded as one of the “best 10km” races, most of it seemed to be a dual carriage way!

It was heaving, I’d like to use the busyness as an excuse but baring a couple of points I dont think it had much impact. Maybe could have squeezed 5-10seconds back without congestion but on the flip side the slowing may have helped!

This is the third “great run” event I have done, I do wonder whether by being so big they create problems for themselves which is a shame. That said, the logistics of getting 38k round a 10k course must be pretty tricky. I always think back to the marathon and know that it takes to about 14+ miles before the roads clear out and aren’t quite so congested!

Would I do this run again? Probably not, it wasn’t cheap and had very few really amazing points. It gave the excuse to go visit friends which maybe the biggest reason to do it again!

Next race is the Bluewater 10k. Completely different course which is very hilly. 3rd time back, should be interesting

Heading to Laura’s on the Saturday evening so we could have a 15min journey to the start it meant I could get up as late as possible at 6:30 for breakfast, a shower and to start taking in my energy drink. Out the door by 7 and on route, it was quite cloudy but the rain looked like it was staying away. I think we got there a lot quicker this year as I don’t remember having to wait around for the start for as long but nevermind – i was warm enough so it wasnt a problem.

I was hoping to do a sub 45 but wasn’t sure whether this was realistic – at Newham I made 46:07 and I had a sub 45 race which I had achieved as part of the Silverstone Half. I headed to quite near the front of the pack so I wasn’t caught up having to spend most of the race overtaking people – fortunately I don’t remember being overtaken too many times so I couldn’t have upset too many people!

The race set off fast – once again, the Virgin pacers got it completely wrong, trying to stick with the 45min pacer was almost impossible and looking at my stop watch after the first mile it was clear why – she was running faster than 6:40 pace, or a 41:25 10km…too fast! After about 2-3km I overtook her as she clearly couldn’t maintain that pace, but I would be intrigued to know if that was her strategy fast start then slow down, but that’s hardly “pacing”. Anyway, as with last year the course can by no means be described as flat – it’s referred to as undulating on RW forums and I remember reading someone describe it as a ‘fun’ challenge.

The first 2 miles were mostly downhill and amazingly I managed splits of 6:41/6:48 respectively – following that came the uphill. The garmin indicates an elevation incline of 40meters over 1mile or alternative a 2.5% incline. Needless to say this was tough and I dug in as much as I could. Fortunately Bluewater is 4meters above sea level and at the top of the hill we reached 40meters so between mile 3.5 and the end we would have to come back down again, but not before a couple more hills. The mid miles I had 7:14/7:26 splits. On the road back home I managed to get my times back below 7mins again. Putting my head down I dug in till the finish line with the final 100meters being another hill just to tease you right at the end, although I had nothing in me to even think about sprinting!

As the title suggests this was a new PB for me – taking about 5mins off of my time for last year and a couple of mins from my time at Newham. I’m well chuffed as I have certainly broken the 45min barrier with that time and it was a hilly course – would be interesting to see what I could pull of on a flat, but will save that for a bit – time to enjoy the moment, let the recovery barby sink in and chillax…Whilst I remember I want to say how well the Bluewater 10km is organised, the goody bags are spot on and probably the best I have ever got as well as that they give out a technical tshirt that is actually quite nice. Well worth the cost of the event…

Edit: since starting this post the race results have come online, there was only one female virgin active pacer even close to the start of the group and she came in at 50:13, me thinks she blew up…

Also the field was obviously very strong this year, in the 2009 race my time would have seen me secure a top 100 finish out of 2000. This year I came in at 189/2092 although today it did feature the Kent County Championships and Kent Grand Prix so I wonder whether there were some faster runners out there! It doesn’t really matter though

Click here for the Bluewater 10k Results.

A 10k run was not however helpful with regards to my training schedule so I had to bring my long run forward to the Saturday. 18miles was the distance required according to the schedule and on a blue sky morning I set off for a local 7M loop before proceeding onwards towards my nans flat in Kennington, 11M away and the other side of the river. Following Thursdays run to my dads office he suggested I run and keep my heart rate down which may allow me to push further as historically I’m not great at maintaining speed. Taking that into account I said my garmin onto ‘Heart Rate’ mode with a max H/r of 164 and a min of 155 (I think!). For the next 2hrs40 mins, bating the first mile or so stayed within the zones only dropping low whilst waiting to cross at traffic lights. The run itself went pretty well with every mile coming in at sub 8min 50, some by quite a bit. The 19th mile was a bit lethargic and slow but I think that’s cause I hadn’t prepared my brain for it! It was great to be out in the sun even though it wad still cold – I think that’s the first blue sky running I’ve done since this marathon training began! 19M conquered leaving only 3M more to do in training and 7 on the day with a few weeks to go. Amazingly this week I managed to run 55 miles at varying speeds and intensities, this was because I had to switch the days of the long run over otherwise it would have dropped down to 36 miles (guess next week will be less ) I find that incredible and I think that is the most I have run in a week.

See 19Mile Splits

Sundays 10k was a race and against my what my brain told me I should do I went for it pushed on by my male ego (plus I was running with a friend who I know wouldn’t go slow)! Another week, another race and another PB with my 10k time coming in at 46:07 taking off about 40seconds off my previous best – running 6Miles at a sub 7min32sec pace – guess you could call that a threshold run! Awesome stuff – think the next stage (sub 45) is a little way off, taking off 67 seconds over 10k is a big push – I would need to have a constant pace of 7min 15sec miles and none of my splits hit that – even the first one which felt mentally fast! Oh well, 10k’s aren’t really for now so back to the long runs! Well done for Soo on that one, incredible running coming in just behind me by about 10 seconds and also having the stamina left in his body for a 200m sprint at the end! Good Effort.

See Newham 10k Splits

Till Next time

For all of my friends this race was the furthest distance they had ‘formally’ run but even before we had started they showed the spirit of true amateur runners forming their excuses as to why they didn’t get the time they hoped for…

I am going to start this post by doing my stats etc then move on to my whinging about the course as I suspect there are a number of people who really couldn’t care about the poor organisation. Due to the flat course I new a personal best was entirely possible, the only concern was due to the large number of people, how much weaving I would have to do. As it turns out I would have to do a lot, racking up an extra 400meters on my watch as well as being on the curbside a lot more than I would like. Fortunately I still managed a time of 46:02 my fastest yet and the knowledge that probably given the right conditions I could make 45mins…my mates also did awesome coming in at 48mins(Soo), 55 mins(Kev), 1hr6(Jackie) and 1hr20(Kul). As Soo was the only one to wear a chip there is an element of trust on those times esp as 2 of them didn’t even wear a watch! To be honest though it really didn’t matter what time they got as ultimately they all finished and when I sat waiting and listening I could tell all of them had had that adrenaline buzz I have had crossing the finish line. Some said never again but I wouldn’t be surprised if they all try again as I think they all found it slightly better than they imagined…I think on that note if anyone wants to run another one I will willingly run with you to keep you company…

Bits of the course followed the marathon course taking in the infamous underpass on the embankment, one of the few bits of privacy that the London marathon runners will see. It was nice to do these bits and take in some of the sights and not have just run 23miles beforehand. The support was pretty good which to be honest makes sense assuming for every 2 or 3 runners they bring a guest. With better organisation I think this run has real potential, running past some amazing sights, sadly this year (and from reading some other forums) and previous years this poor organisation is a common factor.

Congrats and kudos to all my mates. 4 years ago I didn’t expect to be sitting on a pavement having run 10km with them (then again I suspect that is a mutual thought!) however now it’s time to do what I’m good at and moan, maybe this blog will come high up on google for British 10k and the race organisers may read it!

Having done a fair few paid for runs in the last year I thought the Paris half was the poorest organised until now. This event has to come fairly close to it faltering on several places. The event itself has to be one of the biggest 10k’s in London and with that the organisation should be on par to cope with that but it wasn’t…

Having rocked up into town at what I thought to be an early time I decided that I could avoid the portaloos by heading up Shaftesbury Av to McD’s when I arrived I clearly wasn’t the only person to have this idea as there was a queue. This queue however, as we were about to find out, was about 30 mins (at least) shorter than the portaloos in an incredibly bottle-necked baggage drop of area. I didn’t have to drop off a bag but for those who did it was a good job it didn’t rain as it didn’t look like there would be any coverage for the bags. Also this whole area was far to small for the shear number of people here.

Having found a couple of my mates due to him having his mobile on him we decided to walk to the start. This brings me on to issue number 2, the walk from the drop off point to Hyde park corner must be getting on for at least a km if not more. There must be places nearer to the start, to make matters worse they can’t even justify the bag drop being there as it’s close to the end as it was a similar distance from the finish lines to the bags…move the start or finish I’m sure it can’t be too difficult, that way you maybe able to avoid the u-turns which I’ll come onto later….

The start of the race was a complete shambles. Due to the fact that there were no pens to place similar paced runners I got to the back and realised there were several thousand runners of all shapes and sizes in front of me. Don’t get me wrong they all deserved a spot and they had clearly arrived earlier than me but I had paid money to do a run and with this number in front of people I couldn’t see that being possible for the first couple of kms. I decided to keep pushing forward. Eventually giving up when it was clear there was no way I could push further forward it was clear I still had a few thousand in front. The immensely underwhelming klaxon marked the start of the run yet we appeared to be standing still. We seemed to edge forward about 4 at a time and it wasn’t until I reached the “front” did I learn why. For some reason, they had decided to start the queue on one side and make runners cross to start but the gap to go through to cross couldn’t have been more than 5 people wide meaning the 30 or 40 person wide road had to bottlekneck through to the start. As I was on my own I could squeeze through but would hate to think what it was like to maintain a group at the start! Needless to say once through the start line I did indeed spend the first 10 mins weaving in and out past people that in any other race wouldn’t have started. On the plus side the roads on the whole were quite wide meaning that there was normally room to pass.

As I mentioned the route had some nice focal points but the last 3k in particular had bits of it that felt they were tacked on for an extra 200meters, with the number of people involved doing a complete 180 from one side of the road to the other didn’t feel ideal. This happened twice, being forced to go halfway across Westminster bridge then turn then past the Houses of Parliament up a bit then u-turn. I can understand road closures must be a nightmare but I’m sure that 500m could easily have been added without the need for these 180′s! Perhaps look at where the race starts and finishes and move a tiny bit!

I suspect most will be bored by now but if you are still here the course is certainly flat so if you can avoid weaving then there is certainly a pb chance.

From reading the reviews online perhaps we got lucky in knowing side routes into Bluewater, setting off at 730 and only sitting in a small queue of traffic it appears some were not so lucky stuck waiting on the A2 in a queue that could compete with Christmas Eve shopping traffic. By 8am we were parked and I was off heading for my usual pre run routine, namely queuing for the portaloos…sigh

Necessities out of the way and obligatory pre-run photo done, I set off for the start. Bumping into Sports Clinic Chris (would give a link but they have no website) on route was good to have a chat with someone I knew, he was quiet at the time but I suspect this wouldn’t last long and just after an hour after he should have clients trickling in. Start time was now approaching so I headed for the “pens”.

Being smaller in number to a few of the other runs the only restrictions in the starting pens was that women were one side of the road and men the other – not sure why other than it may make a nice photo opportunity. Both groups were started at the same time, and by 830 we were off, running down the road that you enter the shopping center on merging about 800m in at a roundabout.

I didn’t enter this course expecting to see sites, BW is built in a quarry and hence the biggest landmarks on the route could possibly be either the QE2 bridge or Asda . Sadly we didn’t get to run over the QE2 – something I would really like to do one day….Lakeside to Bluewater Run maybe heh. I was blissfully unaware of the hilly nature of this course. Looking at the reviews after most describe the course as undulating – “To give a wavelike appearance or form to”. This to me seems a fairly accurate description of the course, baring the hill at 5km which lasted best part of a 1.5km – that was fun but was over quite quickly with a descent to reclaim some of the time.

I ran a good time considering the conditions. The weather must have been in mid 20′s by 9am, sun fully exposed and also very hilly. According to the pdf on the run website I got the following stats:

Position: 354(2596) Time: 48:52.

This is a new personal best for me and to be honest given a flatter course I suspect I could knock of about 30seconds at least. The garmin also told me that the course was 10.25km, and according to the watch my 10km run time was 48minutes on the dot – see the splits.

What will it take to get my time down below 48mins, will I be able to do it by this time next month – how do people get below 48mins to 45mins? Is this something that is acheivable for me? Will be digging out my magazines and seeing what they suggest to pick up those extra minutes. Keep watching my blog to see my updates and whether in just under a month I can make a time sub 48minutes.