Competitive #10km Race

Sometimes kids I teach ask me things like "how fast are you when you run" and it is tough to answer really.  I usually say something like "well, I'm not fast but I can run for a long time".  Now I can give them a definitive answer.

A friend in the village asked me to take part in a local 10km race across our local common (Mainly off road).  As it was for charity I paid up my entry fee and went along.  Registration required me to give a PB time so I obviously made one up, 50 mins sounded reasonable to me.

The last couple of weeks I intended to cut my weekly mileage and run a few speed interval sessions as I know I can run 10km without any problems, speed and a sprint finish would be my challenges.  This simple plan was ruined by 10 days of serious cold, loss of voice and general ickiness.  I approached the line coughing and issuing a stream of snot from my nose.  I was seeded into the first group to attack the course.  No hiding here then.

With he blast of an air horn to start us we were off.  The young lady wearing the "UK cross country Trials" sweat led the way, I saw her for about 5 minutes.  The course was great, four of five kissing gates did get on my nerves, especially second lap.  (Rain led the organizers to abandon the 10km loop and make a 5km loop instead).

I was happy with my run, my HR reached 104% of max (reset this value then I think) and averaged 98% for the whole race.  The lactic started to burn after 7km, but was bearable.  I maintained the same pace (give or take) for the whole race which was satisfying.  The sprint finish eluded me completely, though I did destroy a couple of competitors by fast tempo running over a km or so.  Not sure what position I finished but definitely to 8 or so out of 90 odd runners.

My time, by my watch was 43:10.  No training, full of snot, gates to get through and off road.  Not bad me thinks.  And I got a medal too.