Wheathampstead 10k 2016

Here's a short summary of my Wheathampstead 10k race in 2016.

- I did the 2k with my 2 year old. She finished 5th from last but managed to walk over a kilometer of the course. She frowned the whole way round but seemed pretty determined.

- I warmed up quite extensively for the 10k and tried to get near (ish) the front of the starting pen. The course is single track for much of it, and I didn't want to repeat my previous mistake by starting half way back.

- Started off on my 4:30 target pace. Felt really great - refused to get sucked into the starting rush.

- In kilometres 4, 5 and 6 I slowed down quite considerably to 4:50 min/km pace. Some gentle rolling hills made it harder to keep pace. The sun made it quite hot so I took off my tshirt. Cue comments from spectators "wow what a body" and "hey look it's Mr Universe", my sarcasm detector is broken so I took the comments at face value xxx

- KM 7 was the most fun as it was mostly downhill with a fun stair section, and had a great water station. I doused myself and enjoyed the views and tonked it downhill to complete my fastest kilometre (4:24).

- KM 8 and 9 were where I really lost concentration. I kept on wishing for the finish that I forgot to concentrate on pushing hard. I failed to hit my target pace - and my target heart rate - just because I was hurting. It's times like these that I need to learn to crack on if I am ever to become a decent runner.

- The final KM was fun because a colleague of mine caught me up. It really surprised me - he was expecting to run around an hour for the 10k, but here he was running at 48 minute pace. He looked like he'd hardly even broken a sweat, so I tried to stay with him as he motored in front of me. That was really great motivation, I was really glad he passed me. I almost wish he'd passed me at kilometre 7 so I could have had the boost earlier.

- Finished in a PB time of 47:29, taking about five minutes off my previous PB (which was a bit of a crap PB to be honest). I made every effort not to just collapse on the finish line, but to actually collect my medal and leave the finishers' area in a dignified fashion. I tried this and nearly fainted, so collapsed in a sweaty heap and regained blood pressure in my brain.

Overall I am able to maintain a much higher effort for longer compared to a year or two ago (thanks to great training from my coaching over the past two months). I also pushed myself nearer to my limit than in any race before. However, it's still not a great race execution, and I think there's plenty of room to improve. Maybe next year I'll come back and easily crack 45 minutes.