I had hoped to go into this race ready to run under 31 minutes for the first time since 2008, but it didn’t quite happen for me and I’m starting to wonder if it’s going to over 10km.
I’d had a good week of training, much lower miles but with some real quality thrown in by doing sessions with Matt Janes and Andrew Inskip. In the ten days before the race I’d run a session of 4x400, 6x300 and 8x200 on the track, a set of six very tough efforts of over 3:40 with a whopping hill in Chicksands Woods, and 12 x 550m on grass off 60 seconds recoveries. The last of these was on the Tuesday before this Sunday race, so I wasn’t dragging fatigue from these efforts into race day.
The pattern of 10km races for me this year has been fairly consistent – on pace for something just inside 31 minutes until 4km, head dropping as I start to struggle in the middle stages, rallying somewhat in the final 2km but not enough to rescue the race. End result, disappointment.
The course seemed quick, starting and finishing at Sportcity, Manchester. There seemed a decent little contingent on the start line, so I knew I’d have bodies around me at my target time. It was a bit warm, 21 degrees maybe, but pleasant.
At 4km I checked my watch and could see things were going well, although clearly the 4-5th km was not the most accurate (3.20) and the halfway split was 15:42. This had coincided with me starting to struggle to keep the pace where it needed to be and my head dropped.
It was during this time that Paulo Natali went by me fairly decisively. Somewhere between 7km and 8km as we emerged back out onto the road after running through Sportcity to end the first lap Chris Wright of Leeds, who pipped me to win the Peterborough 5km last month, went by. In my tired state I made a reasonable job of keeping Chris in range and my last 2km must have been ‘decent’ as when he went by me he was threatening to run away, but by the finish line it was only a three second gap. Chris has just turned 19 and ran 31:36 – great running and a really mature way to race. I clocked 31:39 for 6th.
I’m struggling to see what I’m doing wrong over 10km right now, I’m not going off too fast, but fast enough to run ‘just’ inside 31 minutes, and that’s not overly ambitious because I’ve run well inside 31 on a few occasions.
Maybe it is my age and my background and hopefully this is going to assist me in my marathon ambitions this autumn, principally because my runner profile lends itself to rattling off 26 consecutive 5:25 mile splits and not six 4:58 splits!
My next race is 10,000m on the track, and I’m totally committed to it. What doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger. This is a race I’m hoping attracts a very decent field and myself and Aaron Scott are doing as much as we can to ensure a decent standard up front. So far Matt Janes, Darren Deed are confirmed and both will expect sub 30 minutes.