The Bupa London 10k yesterday was a pretty disappointing day for those chasing fast times.
I'd gone into the race fairly confident of a decent time, certainly sub 31. The wind seemed to drop Sunday evening after a blustery weekend, and with the field absolutely stacked with Brits, all eager to go quick, the omens were good.
I travelled to the race with my Bedford team mates Darren Deed, Andrew Inskip and Owain Matthews and found the UKA Championship building. The atmosphere was really positive and I was really grateful for the amount of people happy for my recent good news on an England vest. The running community are a really good bunch of lads.
We warmed up and I felt like I was going to have a good day, there was a noticable breeze, but as the sun came out this compensated for the warmth.
We were walked down to the start and it wasn't a very satisfactory set up to say the least. I'd seen a youtube clip of the 2010 start and the road was extremely narrow. The depth of field this year was much better, and the start still just as narrow. As we looked across at the ladies, they had plently of room, whilst we were squeezed in - far too compact. I was a good few yards from the starting mat, which didn't concern me as I didn't want to get drawn into an overly fast first mile anyway.
The horn sounded and we were away, I took a good few seconds to cross the mat and then had to weave around runners for much of the first few hundred metres. Despite this I was feeling ok and was soon surrounded by the right guys for where I wanted to be timewise.
From 2-3km I was moving through fairly well and could see the lead clock ahead, much closer than I would have expected, especially given the Mo Farah was in the field. After 3k we hit an incline and I started to feel stretched and was now into my race. Up to this point I was operating at sub 31 pace, but this was the last time my splits indicated this. Thereafter my split readings slowed, yet bizarrely I was moving through the field all the time.
I found 3-7km just extremely twisty, way too twisty for an Olympic Marathon course in my opinion. In fact, there were plenty of sharp turns as I recall, and a cobbled section that wasn't too welcome. As I was running, trying to concentrate on the pace, I was also thinking this wasn't a fast course, and Farah's 27:44 from last year was an amazing run given the circumstances.
The last 3k was along the embankment and I was continuing to move through the field gradually. I went past Mick Hill who ran 31:22 at Manchester two weeks ago and is getting quicker almost daily, this indicated I was running ok, nothing amazing but certainly solid.
I felt alright in the last km and pushed up to the finish line to run 31:44 (on my watch). As soon as I finished it was immediately apparent that everyone was baffled with their times. Mo had run well over 29 minutes for the win, slow for him. Jo Pavey was well outside 32 minutes. All the familiar names and faces I follow were well down on expectations - 30-40 seconds seemed the general opinion and does seem to stack up having looked at the official results.
A few reasons were given, the wind and warm sun being two of them (though I can't say I found either a problem). A few guys went out fast but only in line with what recent runs suggested they were capable of, and to be fair I wasn't one of them. Nobody seemed to go quicker in the second half of the race. It was all very strange. My own splits were 15:34 and 16:10.
There were a few GPS readings suggesting 6.4 miles but I think these could be unreliable anyway, especially with the amount of tall buildings in central London, and a couple of underpass sections.
All in all the race was a bit of a let down as far as fast times went. I think the course (again, in my own opinion) needs looking at ahead of the Olympics next year, it just seems a bit twisty and if it is going to be four laps, it will be up and down the embankment eight times and much of the rest will be winding around tight bends.
Otherwise it was a sound race and the organisation was largely spot on with the exception of the tight start. As UKA Championship runners, we were treated very well.
I'm a bit perplexed at getting an official time of 31:47 with no chip time evident. I recorded 31:44 on my own watch - it's normally maybe one second out, but not three. Again, this was more or less consistent to everyone else I have spoken to.
I was 49th, which gives some idea to the depth of the field. As a team I scored second behind Darren, with Owain just behind me. Not sure if we were among the prize money yet, but seems unlikely.