Run > Race

Had fun at the BUPA 10k today, the weather was perfect. A complete contrast to Luke's Triathlon yesterday. I really can't speak highly enough of the race, it is one of my absolute favorites.

I traveled down to the race with Graeme and Charlotte and made it to the start line with half an hour to go, via a stop off to water the plants.

The professionals set off at 10am, the Red A's at 10:02 and then my Red B's were given the go at 10:04.

I decided to play music today and listened to my running playlist the whole way round. It began with" Down With The Sickness" a very heavy song, but one that really gets me fired up. That was part of the reason why the first km was so fast,as well as being keen to get some open road to run in.

I was looking out for Graeme around the 1km mark and he spotted me, but I missed him and carried on along Embankment. It's an out and back route, and so I always kept my bearings and had plenty of landmarks to keep me focused. I went through the 2nd km too fast as well and I then tried to rein it in a little.

3km and 4km were steadier, and I was comfortable if I held it together my target of sub 45mins was on. Garmin then struggled in the tall buildings and so 5km and 6km splits are false and my Garmin was now reading 0.3km further than the km markers.

I knew 4:30 km's from then in got me what I needed. My lead over the 45min target stayed at around 50 seconds on the run in and I was just fighting to keep moving and the pace on track.

I saw Graeme in the final stretch and gave him a wave as I managed to pick up the pace over the last 200metres. I stopped the Garmin with 44:00 reading on it. A really pleasing race and only just outside my stretch goal of 43:36 the time I ran way back in 2010 when I did this race.

Update:

2010 BUPA 10k - 43:36 - 1st half 22:01, 2nd half 21:35
2014 BUPA 10k - 44:00 - 1st half 21:45, 2nd half 22:15

1)4:04
2)4:09

3)4:23

4)4:24

5)3:58
6)4:06

7)4:19
8)4:30

9)4:31
10)4:19
11)1:17 (0.21 miles)

Split Summary
===
1) 1m - 6:40(6:40/m) 169/184bpm
2) 1m - 6:59(6:59/m) 151/164bpm
3) 1m - 6:35(6:35/m) 139/159bpm
4) 1m - 6:37(6:37/m) 140/152bpm
5) 1m - 7:02(7:02/m) 132/140bpm
6) 1m - 7:13(7:13/m) 136/149bpm
7) 0.44m - 2:54(6:34/m) 140/145bpm