Seeley Cup 10K - Race Report

Saturday 17th November 2012

Running
6.23 miles (10K) / 00:47:45 / 00:07:40 per mile / HR 122% Max

This event was always planned as an opportunity for me to go for a PB over the 10K distance based on a good block of training to improve speed.
This as you will know has sadly not been the case.  The speed training has been sparse, as has any real amount of running over the last 7 weeks.

I reset my expectations and realistically set out to just have a good run, push myself a bit and hold on - hoping to come in under 51 mins - which is just under 8.30 per mile.

There was a great turn out for the event with over 900, and it was the usual excellent organisation from Willowfield Harriers.

It was great to catch up with some familiar faces, fellow Ironman Donald, |Paul, Michael, Barbs and a few of the guys from the Tri club; Mark, Chris and Gavin.  They were flying the flag and had entered the event under the Tri club, which I think makes their results the first official race results for the Lisburn Triathlon Club. An important first!

As the gun went off I was quite far back and it took me a good 1K to get in to a steady rhythm although I did note that I was well below 5 mins for the K, and this would bring me in under 51 mins which I was happy with.

Early on I latched on behind a few guys, one of whom was wearing Tri shorts (don't ask how I know. I just know - as would most other triathletes) and the other was wearing a finishers t-shirt from another Tri.  They were consistently sitting at around 7.45 per mile pace and I thought I would try to hang on to them until I got tired and then drop off a bit.

passing through 5K i wanted to note the time it too to loop around to the finish line as I would have another lap to do and this would give me a good indicator of potential finish time when I got to the last lap.  As it turns out the time was six and a half minutes to get round to the finish area.

The first 2 laps went well and I was very pleased to be holding pace at around 7.45 pace.  And the best news was that I hadn't detonated and felt pretty strong.

With 3K to go I decided to press on the pace and see if I could hold together. Things started to get tough and the shoulders started to get hunched up.  i could hear the words that Oliver Harkin (our Club coach) had talked about at a seminar type event he took for us on the night before - relax the shoulders and keep the arms at 90 degrees.

I focused on this and concentrated on keeping the form and pushing through to the end.  As I crossed the mat where the 5k mark had been, I knew that there should be about 6.5 mins of racing left and that I could hurt myself for that length of time OK.

I really dug in hard and managed to pass quite a lot of people on the last 1K.  To be honest I don't think I was passed once in my last 3K.

I crossed the line and couldn't quite believe that my watch said 47.47.  This was a huge PB.  My previous best was 49.19.
(subsequently the official results show I had 47.45- even better. - averaging 7.40 per mile)
To make things even better, I managed a negative split by running the second half of the race exactly 1 minute faster than the first.

On the whole I am chuffed as anything at achieving this time and especially with the strength that I pulled out.  I firmly believe that the Ironman training has given me a lot of strength even if it is not raw speed at the moment.  I am able to prolong the hurt, which is always a good thing.

I look forward now to working more on the speed and hope that the injuries stay away.

This is a real confidence booster for the goal of going sub 4 Hrs in the London Marathon next April.