My Forum

Morning all,

Angela - my 10k was at Henham, near Stansted. Next up is the Southend HM on 9th June. Good luck with the BUPA 10k on Monday, I hope you're feeling better by then.

Dotty - Good luck in Edinburgh on Sunday, I hope your injury niggle doesn't affect you too much. I didn't realise it was this weekend -  we're actually going to be in Glasgow on Saturday and Sunday and in Edinburgh from Monday to Thursday, it would have been good to get there a day earlier to watch the marathon.

Sarah - Yes, finding that balance is the key thing, and I think I'd rather err on the side of pushing myself too hard than end up feeling I hadn't tried as hard as I possibly could. I've got some good PBs from going off faster than planned but managing to keep up the pace. Anyway, I can only run my next race, I can't re-run the last one. 

Hi all,

I did a 10k yesterday, my first competitive race since the VLM. As I mentioned before I wasn't really expecting to beat my PB (43:28) as it's been taking a while to recover from the VLM, and I also had a few glasses of wine on Saturday night which never helps. I also didn't help myself by going off way too fast at the start - I did the first 1k in 3:54 (albeit some of it was downhill), and the second in 4:17 despite a long uphill section. I then eased up a bit but by the time I got to 5-6k I was finding it hard - my legs were OK but my lungs were struggling. It didn't help that much of the race was off-road, which I always find harder than running on the road.

My time gradually slipped back and at one point it looked as though I might not get under 45min, which was my absolute minimum goal, but I started to feel a bit better around the 8k mark and once I was back on the road I managed to pick the pace up again and was actually running quite strongly over the last 1k. I finished in 44:07 which was respectable enough in the circumstances and I was in 27th place out of 263 overall. So in principle I think I should be happy enough with that, but I may have done better if I'd been more sensible at the start.    

Hi Angela,

Well the Brentwood HM is the week before Colchester and I would normally do that, so I'm already looking to change my plans for you

I just prefer to sign up nearer the time so I can make sure as far as possible it's not going to clash with family stuff.     

Hi Sarah,

Well done on another great PB!

I'm a bit more hopeful for my 10k on Sunday now - I've been out a couple of times this week and just done 4-5 miles and my legs have felt much better.

Hi Angela,

No, I didn't do the Colchester 10k this year. I'm quite keen to do the HM next year and will definitely try to do it if others here are up for it, but I haven't put my entry in yet. I will probably wait for a bit until I know what else is likely to be happening around that time.