New Year, New PB

Despite plenty of parkrun events in 2014, Sunday brought my first actual race of the year. The St Luke's Hospice 10 mile event takes place at the Ford test track facility, near Basildon.
It was the site of false promise in 2012 when I PB'd with a 1:25:36 two weeks before the Silverstone half. I felt that set me up to break the two hour barrier, yet I wasn't able to do so, heat and stamina took me to a 2:01. This year it was just myself running, with Paula attending as my official photographer & support team!
I had no idea what to expect this time around. When I'd put together my training plan my aim was a 1:20. I suspect I was being overly optimistic, an eighty minute ten miler is definitely beyond me at the moment. To do so I would need to run at a parkrun PB pace throughout! Perhaps next year!!!

Pre Run - Cold

The week before the event I started looking at what pace I should try and attempt. A 1:30 would be sensible, 5:38/km pace throughout. The pace would be sustainable, but would it really test me? If I'm going to get close to a 1:50 in Helsinki then race conditions should be respected & I should try to go as fast for as long as I can. With that in mind I started to look at what I'd need to do to get a 1:25. This would require 16km at 5:18 pace. I decided to see it I could sustain this pace.

The Run

It was a cold, blustery morning. I ventured out of the car to make sure my new Garmin 210 worked fine, the Nike had travelled with me just in case. Everything worked just fine so I headed back to the car until ten minutes before the start so I could keep warm. A quick jog back to retrieve my water bottle was sufficient for a warm up.

Inflatable Shenanigans at the start

The start was a bit chaotic, the inflatable Start sign got caught in the wind and kept collapsing on everyone, it was like Funhouse for runners! I'd started my garmin just before the start so that I wouldn't be faffing around with the watch.

Approaching 4 miles

I settled into a pace straight away, consistently between 5:10 - 5:22 a kilometre. I found myself going past people regularly, possibly a sign that I'd lined up too far back, but also an indication that my speed was consistent. The run itself consists of two laps of the test track facility, relatively flat with a couple of gentle up and down hills, the lap then ends with a ten metre climb before easing into a long downhill. The camber of the track can be difficult to negotiate, luckily this was only a factor at the start of the race when the field was still compacted.

Throughout my pace appeared to be in or around where I hoped to be, I fully expected to have an hour in the tank & then a gradual slowing down until crossing the line just before 1:30. This simply didn't happen though, I took on a gel just after 40 minutes & felt good enough at the hour mark to not need another. The pace wasn't dropping off. In fact after the race I thought I'd run a negative split. I went through 10k in 53 minutes & once I'd talked myself up the final ascent I had just over a mile to the end. In fact, the final mile marker is level with the finish line. At this point I wasn't completely sure how many seconds my Garmin was over my chip time, but realised an eight minute thirty final mile would get me close to a PB. As that was the pace I'd been managing throughout the run, it was just a case of keeping going & trying to kick towards the end to shave a couple of seconds off. The winds appeared to be at their worst by this stage of the race, but I was determined to finish fast, rather than slow.

Entering the final mile, a tad windy!

I crossed the line with a 1:25:25 on my watch, a new 10 mile PB before any chip timing is taken into account. Once the official results were published I was even more happy, 1:25:09. 27 seconds taken off of my previous best & an indication than I am getting back to form after a dodgy end to 2013.

A strong finish

New Toy!

The Eat

Whoever placed the Mars bars in our goody bags, thank you! By the time we got to the car I was feeling tired & it was the perfect pick me up. The sugary hit sustained me until I got home & was able to polish off the rest of the home made sausage rolls. We'd been pigs the day before with a visit to The Diner in Spittalfield market. A Philly steak sandwich for me, diablo burger for Paula & some Hanger fries to share (fries topped with caramelised onions, cheese & burger sauce). The fries made the hearty serving of Mac & cheese almost appear healthy!

The Conclusion

I can't help but feel rather satisfied with how the run went. This was the first 10 miler I'd completed (one painful DNF later in 2012) since my previous visit in 2012, the fact is you don't see many events of this distance. Using a Runners World calculator, a result such as this should mean I can expect a 1:53 half marathon. But as I stated at the start of this post, my results in 2012 were massively disappointing after having a good even in Basildon.
This time around, I'm taking the running calculator prediction with a pinch of salt. In my current state, the result was excellent & if I can keep on improving on my pace whilst also adding distance I should be comfortably under the 1:55 mark in Helsinki & hopefully even closer to 1:50.
The result was a nice confidence boost. My long run training has been far from perfect so far this year, but I'm showing improvement.
A final note, what kind of idiot walks straight to the car & forgets to do any post run stretching? Well that would be me, 2 days out I'm still aching! No Natural Hero for me, I brought this on myself so will save the warm ginger rub for when I deserve it!

New stats

Consistent Pace

Garmin Map

Map via another Garmin friendly Android app