Wimbledon Common 10k – The title was going to be “Not every race is a PB”

Another Sunday, another 10km race. This time it was a bit closer to home and it wasn’t freezing. I ran for about 5 minutes beforehand hoping that a warm up would mean I wouldn’t hate the first 5km as much as I did last time.

I knew that the first 2km would be mostly uphill so once that distance was covered I was hoping to fly and finish the run in super quick time. The legs, however, didn’t really want to sprint so I just kept up a good enough pace so that I was feeling uncomfortable but not totally hating it.

I realised at 5km that I was going to finish in about 49 minutes. Annoyingly my Garmin only shows me my current average pace, not the average pace for the entire distance already run so I don’t really have an exact idea of how I’m doing until I’m close to the end and can actually do the math on my own.

There was a guy who was breathing down my neck most of the way. It’s mind boggling how he managed to run 10k panting like that. I was hoping to get away from him but every time I lost him, he reappeared after a few minutes. Geez.

After 8km it all went downhill. Literally :)  I didn’t put on the breaks and just sped down as fast as I could running the first downhill km in 4 minutes 16 seconds. I actually lost the heavy breather on this downhill bit. Whew.

The last km was not too bad either since coming downhill gave me some momentum for a while. I wish there had been signs though for 800m to go, 500m to go, etc. – without them I don’t properly speed up until I can actually see the finish line and in this race we only had about 200m to go once we cleared the woods and saw the end. I sprinted and I finished as the clock was still at 48 minutes. I quickly sat down to avoid nausea – 5 and 10km races are always fun once they’re over and you’re sitting down :P

Official time: 48:02

Another PB but only by 19 seconds. Oh well, I’m not complaining. Two years ago the same amount of exertion meant 53 minute 10k races for me so I have improved and hopefully will keep improving.

As with everything in life, I don’t believe there are quick fixes or quick solutions – no one becomes Speedy Gonzales overnight. So I’ll keep doing what I’m doing and maybe I won’t get the 46 minute 10k like I had hoped to in 2013 but what’s another year when you’re having fun :)

And here’s a final thought about racing, one that went through my mind several times on Sunday: