parkrun tourism: Pomphrey Hill

At the weekend, my wife and I headed off again to try out another parkrun. This time, a Christmas party in Bristol with my wife's family was the excuse. There are four parkruns in and around Bristol: Ashton Court, Little Stoke, Pomphrey Hill and Chipping Sodbury. There is also one in Bath. As we were staying in Keynsham the two most logical options were Pomphrey Hill and Bath, and despite the worrying aspect of the name, we went for Pomphrey Hill.

As luck(?) would have it, Ira Rainey (one of them there Twitter folk: @IraRainey) was run director for the day, so I had a ready source of information for the event, and it would be a good excuse to meet him face to face. (In a public environment, in case he turned out to be a mad axe-murderer.) He proved to both supply good information, recommending trail shoes rather than road shoes, and not be a mad axe-murderer (at least, not on a Saturday morning...)

A cold and frosty morning for a run. (Credit: Ira Rainey)

I wasn't too keen on the idea of three laps, but on the other hand, I'd raced in the Street 5k series early in the week, and that consisted of five laps, so three didn't seem quite so bad. The run briefing was fun and interactive, and definitely one that other parkruns could learn from. For example, asking if any runners have hit an "anniversary run" helps to avoid cliquishness that might otherwise set in. With all that done, we were asked to step back behind the line, which ruined my cunning plan to shave half a second off my finishing time!

Pomphrey Hill is quite a small parkrun, typically attracting less than 100 runners: with this in mind, and a look at previous results, I knew that I should be running in and around the top 10, an unusually lofty position, and one that normally means I've set off far too fast!

So, the course:
In many ways, of the local parkruns I've done in the past couple of months, this one was most similar to our own at Longrun Meadow. It was run entirely on paths around a playing field, though they varied between light gravel, tarmac and bark. The major difference was the hill. Longrun Meadow is pretty pancake like. Pomphrey Hill, as the name might suggest, is not. The cry of "Up Pomphrey!" during the run briefing gave me the idea that this possibly was not "just" a hill. Actually, as Ira pointed out at the end, it's only actually just under 40 ft of climb. However, the steepness, combined with the fact that this was the spongy bark-covered part of the course made it more sapping than perhaps it should have been. Of course, what goes up must come down, and in its own way, the descent was as difficult as the ascent: the frosty morning meant that despite the salt that had been put down, footing was a little hairy on the tarmac path back down the hill.

The great advantage of multiple laps is the obvious fact that after the first time around, you know what's coming and can adjust your pace in anticipation: be that slowing for a hill, or accelerating because there isn't far left. The disadvantage is that when you have just got to the top of a hill, you are aware that you still have to run up it another twice!! Still, on balance I think I actually quite enjoyed the shorter laps, as it helped me to maintain a more consistent pace than I typically manage at Longrun Meadow.

Back to my run:
I spent much of the race in tenth place, and pushed up to eighth on the climb Up Pomphrey on the final lap. Despite actually being slower up and down the hill on my third lap, I held on to eighth place, and even put in a trademark sprint finish to cement it. Once I'd finished I looped back on the course a little bit to cheer on my wife, who was coming around to start her final lap, and had a chat to a couple of the other runners. Unsurprisingly for a parkrun, particularly a small one, everyone was very friendly and chatty: it's great to be part of such a nice community, even when miles from home!

Final analysis: I finished in 21:05, my second fastest parkrun anywhere, which was something of a surprise given how much harder the course felt (and the fact that my watch said 21:22, but no more about that!) My wife completed her first parkrun since July, since when she has been beset with chest problems. All in all, a good fun morning, and a course we both want to go back to.

Brent Knoll: race report

In mid-October, I completed my second half-marathon, Exeter's Great West Run (you can read about how I did here), which was my last major race of the year. However, to end my season, I decided to book in the Brent Knoll race. Brent Knoll is a 137 metres (449 feet) high hill a couple of miles from Burnham-on-Sea. Apparently, one of King Arthur's knights, "Ider son of Nuth", went to the hill on a quest to slay three giants. Or so says Wikipedia. While I didn't spot any giants, I can report that the hill itself certainly felt like a giant one!

The race started at a very sociable time: 11:30. I know that it isn't really a practical time to start a summer race, but at this time of the year, I certainly appreciated the later start. I travelled up on my own, and didn't know of anyone else doing the race, but as I was idling around waiting for everything to get going, I heard a cry of "Ben". I ignored it. Yes, I'm called Ben, and yes, that's what was shouted, but I just assumed it was for someone else. When the shout was repeated, louder, I decided to pay some attention, and saw Rob, Kerry, Chris, Eliza and Louise from my running club!

Louise, Eliza, Chris and me, looking very
clean prior to the race. (Photo credit: Rob Murr)

After posing for a few photos, we headed off to the start line, where I saw a fellow parkrunner, Andy, and had a quick chat to him. Before we knew it though, the (pretty quiet) announcer at the start called 3-2-1-Go, and we shot off. Knowing that Andy tends to beat me at parkrun, I let him ahead of me, but then stuck pretty close behind him. At least, I did until I saw him hopping out of a muddy puddle: his shoe had come off! The route, which heads out from Burnham to Brent Knoll, is flat for the first mile and a half, which I completed in about 7:30 min/mile. The subsequent mile and a half was done at about 10:50 min/mile. That mile and a half included the two significant hill climbs.

The first climb was the smaller of the two, but the terrain made it, in my opinion, much the harder. It was the slowest part of the race, and there were a couple of points that I was genuinely on my hands and feet, scrambling for some, any, sort of grip. More than once a fistful of grass stopped me from slipping back down the slope. To add to the chaos, everyone had their own idea of which route was the best, and this resulted in mass of bodies all frantically trying to just reach the top. Despite my worries that it would only take one overeager person near the top to slip and take us all out, the climb was eventually completed, and the course levelled back out for a while.

I would love to say that the level section allowed me to regain my energy and breath to attack the second hill. Actually, I just ran like a mad person to try and make up for the "time lost" scrambling up the hill, and as a result I slowed to a walk almost as soon as the second incline began. The footing was much better this time though, and after a while there were even steps. Oh, the luxury. Despite this, no one around me looked to even be contemplating running, and I certainly wasn't going to be the only idiot! But on reaching the top, the first stride off the step was back into a run. No time to stop and admire the wondrous views, ya know, this is a race!

Okay, I did have a glance around and take in what I could, and it was stunning, but I certainly didn't have the time to do it justice. A quick half loop of the top, and we were heading back down again. For this section of the race I have to thank the chap in front of me, who demonstrated an effective technique which I shamelessly copied. I'm sure all fell runners are aware of it, but it is essentially to continue to lean slightly forwards, and to zig-zag down the hill. The pair of us passed a number of runners as we descended. In the back of my mind, the next descent was starting to loom large: I'd struggled to scramble up it, how the heck was I going to safely get down it?!

Well, as it turns out, with a commando roll.

My mind began to buzz about the hill as we approached it: I didn't know how people would be attempting it: crawling back down, scrambling, sliding? It turned out, just running. The runner who was now in front of me (not the downhill expert) lost his footing at one point and slid a couple of metres on his bum, and then in the same place, my foot went completely from under me. I have little recollection of exactly how I rolled, but the mud was on my elbow, back and bum. Thankfully, after one roll I was back on my feet, and still running down the hill at pace. Amazingly too, I'm bruise-free!

With that descent safely (ish) navigated, it was just the level slog back to the start/finish, though by this stage, my legs were feeling decidedly tired! With just over a mile to go I was passed by another runner, and after a short argument, I convinced my legs to speed up a little and keep pace with him. I essentially dragged myself along behind him, and then, like the bastard that I am, I found that little bit extra and passed him in a sprint finish.

In fact, I was then told off by Rob and Kerry, as I'd ruined their photos by running too fast. They suggested that I go back and do the finish again to get better ones. I demurred.

I finished with a time of 51:11, which was probably faster than I was expecting to go, although the conditions were probably better than in the past couple of years, which I'd used as my benchmark for times. Andy came in about a minute after me, having lost his shoe twice more during the race: possibly tighter lacing is needed! I was surprised, but pleased, to receive a finisher's medal, as I hadn't seen anything about one in the race information!

So, it might have seemed mad to make my celebratory end of season race a muddy hill climb, but all in all, I had a great time, and will probably be back again next year!

The off-season: 11 top tips for things to do during enforced rest

After the Great West Run in October, I always planned to let my body have a bit of a rest. In fact, I was basically prepared to give it the rest of October and all of November. Now, admittedly, this wasn't complete rest. Just dropping down to a comfortable three runs a week, totalling about 12-15 miles. Apparently though, my body didn't appreciate the efforts I was going to, and took matters into its own hands. Or more accurately, lungs.

Which left me with more time on my hands than I expected to have. So here are my 11 top tips for things to do during the off-season.*

  1) Book races
Okay, so I might be ill now, but that's no reason not to book out the whole of January, February and March with races right? I joked to a friend yesterday that my "long-term planner" is actually just my race diary. It wasn't actually a joke. I don't race as regularly as many, but I've got three races definitely booked, and another four pencilled in. Just in the first three months of next year. Oops.

  2) Buy winter kit
That first day that you step out the door and think "by jove, it's cold" (or however your mental voice would phrase it) is the time to stock up on winter running gear. I've been pretty good this year, and only picked up a couple of things so far: an extra hi-viz t-shirt, and a compression top that matches my running club vest. Because, you know, I don't want to clash.

  3) Sort running kit drawer
While we're on the topic of the kit, is it really still necessary to have four different vests in the drawer? Now that it's cold I'm surely going to do clothes washing often enough to only need a couple of those right? And where did I hide those gloves away? And what is that?

Okay. I haven't actually sorted it yet. I keep looking at it
and then finding something else to do. Can't think why.

  4) Watch a box-set / complete a video game / read a trilogy
Remember that box-set you got for Christmas, but never managed to watch because you were out running? Now you can watch all 24 episodes! Or that video game you started, but then just sort of... forgot about. Or that trilogy that looks really good, but you're worried that if you don't read them quickly, you'll forget who all the characters are. Seriously, I've completed about 25% of Grand Theft Auto during this "rest", and that isn't a small game.

  5) Volunteer at parkrun
If you can't run... volunteer! I don't think that slogan will catch on. Also, it turns out that if you go and volunteer on a cold day with horizontal driving rain, and a chest infection, you then develop a fever to go with it. I don't recommend the pair, individually or paired up. So, if you're resting due to illness, maybe skip this idea.

  6) Read everybody else's blogs and get jealous
Actually, now that I think about it, this one isn't ideal. I mean, it's great to be able to catch up with what you're all doing and stuff. But seriously people, why don't you all take a couple of weeks off too, just to make sure that I don't get jealous. Thank you.

  7) Write a training plan
New season: new plan. In my case, the new plan is basically the same as the old plan, but with two extra runs added in, and a longer long run. I'm hoping that nobody notices that both of the extra runs have been added on the same day. I'm sure mentioning it won't make it any more obvious. Ho hum.

On the back of an envelope, obviously.

  8) Write your Christmas list
This probably only works if you're reading this roughly when it is published. If you're catching up, or randomly found this on Google and it's February, maybe give it a miss. But otherwise, start scribbling that list down: new trainers, new Garmin, that swanky Nike top with the thumb-holes in the sleeves...

  9) Eat
Because it's a proven fact that the next best thing to running is eating. Try out some new recipes: plenty of those that took too long to consider when you had to factor a run in are now perfectly do-able. Of course, you might need to think about going for slightly less calorific options, but that just adds another challenge into the cooking, and might expand your repertoire! Me - I'm thinking Chocolate Fondant and a couple of new curries. Not together. Probably.

Sadly, this is not one I've made. Hopefully mine will
look this ace though. (credit: Robin, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

  10) Polish and sort medals
So, they've been hung up on the wall for a while now. They could probably do with a dust and polish. Now that I look at them, the display is a little imbalanced too: all the long ones are on one side, which looks a bit odd. But if I move that one over, the colours will clash. This could take a while.

  11) Rest
Oh yeah, I sort of forgot about this one, but I think it's pretty important. Rest. Whether enforced or not, let the body have a bit of a break so that any ongoing niggles can sort themselves out and you'll be fit and raring to go for the next season .. next week .. tomorrow.

So there you go, 11 things to keep you going when you're not running. I'm sure I've missed some important things out though, what do you do to stay occupied and reasonably sane during some down-time from running? Do you just go crazy?

* By "top" I mean, the first ones I thought of. And by "tips" I don't mean suggestions. Actually, they're just "things".

parkrun tourism: Yeovil Montacute

A couple of weeks ago, I headed out for a little more parkrun tourism. It came hot on the heels of a visit to Killerton, and was the last week in a five-week absence from my home parkrun (rest, illness, Killerton, rest, Yeovil). I was quite tempted to just head to my home run after so long away, but this bit of tourism had been planned for a while, so I stuck with the plan.

Location:
This is technically the next closest parkrun to me after Longrun Meadow, although the differing quality of the roads means that it takes more or less the same time to do the 22 mile drive to Yeovil Montacute as it does to drive 28 miles to Killerton. Like Killerton, the Yeovil Montacute run is located in the grounds of a National Trust property. Unlike Killerton, the route goes right past the house, with the east façade (pictured) providing a gorgeous backdrop to the run. Admittedly, despite the size and glamour of the building, my attention was elsewhere while running!

The stunning Montacute House (credit: Mike Searle, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Terrain:

Again, this varied completely from either of Longrun Meadow or Killerton. The route was entirely run on grass, and undulated throughout. The course was reasonably dry when I ran it, but I suspect that some of the ditches that I dropped down into would get quite tasty in the winter months. In fact, the ditch jumps, which Sarah (@mia79gbr) raved about so much in her blog post back in April, were the main reason I wanted to do this course so much. What I did forget reading in her post was that there was a "massive hill in the last kilometre". This did catch me a little by surprise. It shouldn't have done, but it did. Underfoot, the course is most similar to a cross-country course: my trail shoes performed admirably, but a set of XC spikes would probably be the most effective. Once it gets a bit wetter, this isn't a course I'd recommend attempting in normal road shoes, I suspect you'd slip all over the place!

Course:

The route takes in one "little lap" and one "big lap". At the end of the first lap, the little one, you are running directly towards the house, the finish and all the cheering supporters. This provides a similar boost to the traditional lap set-up at Longrun Meadow, although I didn't see a similar boost in pace! The big lap then completes an entire circuit of the grounds.

Summarising, I really enjoyed the run. I ran a slower time than I've achieved at either Killerton or Longrun, although my pacing was pretty awful, so that will have played a part. It is less well-attended than either of those as well, which did make the latter part of the race a little uncompetitive: it was pretty clear that I would finish 17th, no higher and no lower, for the last mile of the run. That said, as with every parkrun I've attended, the support was great from all the volunteers and spectators, and I would love to go back when it's a little bit wetter! Additionally, I'm really glad to have three such completely different courses as my three nearest parkrun events.

Exeter's Great West Run: race report

After completing the challenge of running my first half-marathon earlier this year at Silverstone, I knew I wanted to do an autumn half as well. Realistically, I had three choices: Cardiff, Bristol or the Great West Run. Cardiff and Bristol are both flat, fast courses, while the Great West, being in Exeter, is on the hilly side. I chatted to a few people, and after enjoying a few undulating 10k courses, decided to go for the Great West Run.

Oh my God, why?

Okay, okay, it wasn't actually that bad.

Race vest: ready!

Much as with the Taunton 10k, I didn't have the ideal preparation: two weeks before the race I spent pretty much the entire week off work sick, and the week directly preceding the race was a six-day week, with Friday and Saturday being taken up entirely with a stock-take. I know, woe is me! All that accounted for, I didn't feel too bad on the Sunday morning. I had spent the previous evening preparing my race kit: club kit with number attached, some food, drink and warm clothing, nothing too complicated. A 6:30 alarm was a little earlier than usual for a Sunday, but not too bad – especially as my 1-year-old daughter woke us up at 6:20 teething anyway!

Breakfast: Porridge and a glass of water, and by five past 7 I was heading out of the door. Travel and parking passed without any trouble, and I was glad to have parked in a legal place, as walking back to my car afterwards I passed plenty of cars with fixed penalty notices on them. A short walk got me to the race village, where I met up with a friend from Twitter, Matt (@MattUpston) and discussed some race strategy: he knew the course pretty well, and I was happy to take on all the local knowledge that I could!

Heading over to the start, I met up with Al, who I often run with at parkrun: we tend to finish around the same point. I probably have a slight edge at 5k, but he’d run a 1:38 half-marathon earlier in the year, so I knew if he was in that sort of form I wouldn't have a chance of keeping up! That said, we had decided to head out at around 1:45 pace, i.e. 8-minute-miles, and then see how it felt.

As you can see, we didn't really stick to that plan. The first mile was downhill, so running a quicker time along that wasn't an issue, and actually it felt good. After that we settled into a slightly slower pace, and although it might not meet the official definition of "conversational pace", we did (perhaps stupidly) proceed to have a conversation for more or less the first seven miles of the race. This did get us a few odd looks: apparently chatting is frowned upon at that pace.

Splits courtesy of Strava!

I struggled with the Little Miracles energy drink, which was at seven miles: it was sweet and sickly, and with the lid removed, the hole to drink from was the size of a milk bottle top! I took two gulps, accidentally spilling it all over my top, and then gave up on it. 

There had been a few ups and downs during the first half of the race, but with the exception of a couple of sharp hill at around the three mile mark, they had been pretty friendly. This changed as we approached eight miles. This hill I already knew about: around 150 feet up towards the university. My wife studied at Exeter, so I had plenty of experience of this part of the course, and while that didn't help physically, it was nice to know what I was facing. It was especially nice to know that after reaching the university entrance, the road drops and then climbs again, something that had a few other runners around me cursing.

I think it's fair to say that at this point Al and I both felt we were holding the other back, but amazingly we had managed to hold our pace at around 7:40. Strava suggests this was a "grade adjusted pace" of 7:19 and 7:09, and that might have contributed to my later struggles. Despite being a warm morning, from around this point I started to feel quite cold; the hairs on my arms stood up and I shivered a few times. I knew this was likely due to a fuelling failure of some kind: whether I didn't have enough sugar, water, or just energy I don't know, but it clearly wasn't a good sign. I opted for the not-very-sensible tactic of ignoring the chills and continuing along with Al.

I started to really struggle over the next two miles: I was shocked when I looked at my splits after the race and discovered that they remained around the 7:40 mark. I had been warned that the out-and-back leg along Pinhoe Road was hilly, but I had relegated it to "undulating" in my head. I managed to keep running the whole of the out leg, but as we climbed back up a hill approaching 12 miles, I told Al to head on, and dropped to a walk. After about 20-30 seconds, and spurred on by a passing runner, I started running again, but dropped down to a walk twice more over the next half mile. Another runner, whose top announced him as Paul, also walked bits, and we geed each other along for a while. Amazingly during all of this, I managed to keep Al in sight, and after taking on some water I thought I might be able to chase him back down before the finish. 

I didn't manage it: he kicked on for the final sprint after the 13 mile marker, and although I did similar, I didn't have enough to close him down. For the first time at the end of a race, I threw up within a few steps, but thankfully after sipping at the offered water, I was feeling pretty okay again within a couple of minutes. I obviously looked in a bit of trouble, as one of the marshals at the end hovered over me, asking if I was okay, and if I needed a medic. Thankfully it didn't come to that!

My time was 1:41;52, just five seconds behind Al in the end, and over ten minutes quicker than my only previous half-marathon attempt. I had mixed feelings at the end, the massive PB was obviously great, but I'd been quietly hoping for a sub-1:40 time, which I'd been on track for until those final couple of miles. That said, it was a hilly course, and I'd clearly messed up with my preparation somehow, so I was glad that having ignored my chills, I hadn't ended up in an ambulance. 

I'd like to experiment with gels before my next half, as that might provide a decent alternative to relying on race-provided energy drinks during a race. Similarly, a slightly shorter and less stressful working week leading up to the race would be nice! This morning, looking back, I'm really happy with my time on that course. 

Have you ever had the chills during a race, even when it wasn't cold?

How do you fuel before and during a half marathon?

parkrun tourism: Killerton

Firstly, a question: as a brand name, "parkrun" isn't capitalised. Grammatically this is clearly incorrect, it is a proper noun, and therefore should take a capital letter. However, as a corporate styling, it doesn't. I can cope with that. But, but... what about when it starts the sentence, then what am I meant to do?! Anyway, never mind, I went with the corporate styling, even though it offends my eyes.

Last weekend, I decided to cheat on Longrun Meadow parkrun, and pop down the road to my next closest. This isn't the first dalliance, but previously it has only been on a weekend when I was out of Taunton anyway, and everyone knows the postcode rule, right? But this time was different, I was still at home, I could have easily walked down the river for my usual Saturday morning routine, but I wanted something new, different, exciting! I wanted... Killerton parkrun.

Actually, there's a bit more to the story than that: Killerton were short of volunteers early in the week, and my wife currently isn't running, so given that we'd wanted to try the course out for a while, it seemed an ideal opportunity: she signed up to barcode scan, and I went along to run. Killerton was very, very different to Longrun Meadow, and rather than write a normal "race report" style post, I'd like to compare and contrast:

Willow Cathedral in Longrun Meadow
(credit: shuunyanet, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Location:

Killerton House (credit: Roger Cornfoot)

This is the first, and most striking difference. Longrun Meadow is part of Taunton's flood defences, and consists of paths around flood pools. A number of projects have resulted in the Oak Barn and the Willow Cathedral (pictured), but it is still essentially a flood plain! In contrast, Killerton parkrun takes place in the grounds of a National Trust property, and weaves its way through woodland down onto pasture land at the end. Not that I was doing a great deal of sightseeing during the run! Being a National Trust site did help us navigate to the run, as there were useful brown signs directing us from the motorway, although my car's sat-nav still got some use! The other obvious difference in locations was in their distance from me: Longrun Meadow is a slow twenty minute walk along the river from home. Killerton was a forty minute drive. I know which I'd generally prefer on a Saturday morning, although, with a young daughter, I'm up early enough either way!

Terrain:
As a flood plain, Longrun Meadow is almost entirely flat, and predominantly on lightly-gravelled paths. There might be some sort of technical name for the type of path, but I'm not really a path expert, so if there is, I don't know it. A short section is tarmacked cycle path, while another, dubbed "the muddy bit" is grass in the summer, and a mud-bath in the winter. Killerton on the other hand is an undulating course, though one that drops about 125 feet from start to finish, taking in fields, woodland paths and farm-tracks. The footing is uneven in places, uneven in others, and particularly hazardous with the current generous layers of autumn leaves. Thankfully, some of the gates are left open and guarded by marshals to prevent hazardous prancing over cattle-grids or vaulting over fences. (Though I hear one such manoeuvre might have been involved when the course record was set!)

Course:
Apart from the terrain, the most obvious difference between the runs is perhaps that Longrun Meadow parkrun is run over two laps, while Killerton takes in just one: and in fact as the start and finish are a few hundred metres apart, it could be argued it isn't even a lap! I've always favoured "one lap" events, citing the fact that multiple laps of the same course would be boring, and having to go around everything again would be mentally tougher. To an extent, I stand by that, but on the other hand, taking in two laps of Longrun Meadow means that we run past the finish line, where most of the volunteers, and any supporting family members are, halfway around. Whether you're struggling or not, this gives a nice little boost in the middle of the run. Not just a mental boost either: the speed increase in the graph below is replicated in almost every run I do at Longrun Meadow, and it's completely unintentional.

Not sure your cheering and clapping helps? My pace graph says it does!

At Killerton however, only the marshals provided support around the course, and while that support was welcome and well-received, it can't quite compare!

Volunteers and runners:
What wasn't different? The cheery, friendly nature of every parkrunner and volunteer. Despite being short earlier in the week, I think Killerton ended up slightly over-subscribed with volunteers as people sacrificed a run to help out. I got chatting before the race to a chap who was down visiting family, running his 49th parkrun, but his first at Killerton. We compared notes on our "home" parkruns and moaned about the hill we had to climb to the start. During the run, I did have a small problem with an unaccompanied junior runner, but these things happen, and credit to the Killerton core team, after I mentioned it, they posted a notice about junior runners on their Facebook page later that day. I hung around at the finish line, cheering runners home after I'd finished, and as always it was great to see the smiles as people pushed for the final sprint.

So the conclusion? Different, different, but same! This week, I've got to work on Saturday, but next week I'm cheating on Longrun Meadow again, and am heading out to Yeovil Montacute. I'm sorry Longrun Meadow, but I've had a taste of something different, and now I'm hooked!

Have you cheated on your "home" parkrun?

What differences and similarities did you find?

Do you want to run more different parkruns, or do you prefer to run the same one?

Taunton 10k: race report

I came into the Taunton 10k without too much expectation. I'd only entered the event because my wife was running it, and she'd been forced to miss it due to ongoing chest problems. About a month earlier, I'd smashed my 10k PB, dropping it from 46:40 to 43:44, and in all honesty I felt like that run had been a bit of a flash in the pan. I certainly didn't feel at all confident that I could reproduce it on the undulating course in Taunton. To add to this, I'd done some canoeing on the Friday night, and my legs felt all kinds of awful on Saturday. So it came as something of a surprise when I turned into the final stretch of the race and saw that the timer read 43:32, and I should get a move on. But I jump ahead of myself...

My own training had been a little haphazard for the month between the Battle of Sedgemoor 10k (BoS) and this one. I'd felt really sore for a few days after the BoS, and hadn't got back out running until the following Friday, and then after only a few days of training, I picked up a nasty stomach bug which put me out for another week. That out of the way, I managed to get back into some sort of rhythm with my running, but wasn't feeling as strong as I had before BoS. With a half marathon coming up in mid-October, I was worried about my long runs, and had considered squeezing this 10k into the middle of a longer run, sacrificing a good race time here for some valuable mileage. I managed to get a 10 mile run in the weekend before the race, and decided that gave me confidence enough for the half-marathon, and I could focus on the 10k as it deserved.

Running Forever RC were out in force for this race! *

I completed 5 one-mile reps at the track on Monday, at just slower than my intended race pace, and then went for a relaxed club run on the Wednesday. I skipped my normal Thursday run, and intended to go for a very relaxed parkrun with the buggy on Saturday morning. Canoeing aches scrapped that plan! Sunday morning I still felt pretty sore, but decided that I would go out and try to consolidate with a morale-boosting sub-45 time. Despite being my home 10k, I didn't really know the course very well, having never managed to take part before (but with a couple of DNSs).

The undulations started almost immediately, and my confidence took a bit of a hit: with my sore legs, even the relatively mild inclines were burning, and it was only the first mile! I slotted in behind a couple of guys I knew ran around my pace from parkrun, and just focussed on not letting them get away from me. The first three kilometres went through residential Taunton, before a climb over the motorway and off towards the village of Stoke St Mary, which was roughly halfway around. As always, my pacing could do with some work: my first mile was the quickest of the race: 6:52, but then I settled into a pace just over 7-minute miles.

The support around the whole course was incredible, even through the country lanes there was a surprising number of people out to cheer us along, and being a member of a Taunton running club, Running Forever RC, I gained benefit from the "home support". I won't pretend that I knew even half of the people who cheered me on with cries of "Go Running Forever!", but they all helped. As we rose over the motorway for the second time, I was buoyed by both the knowledge that this would be the last incline, and encouragement from club-mates Nadine and Dave: although the suggestion that I made it look "effortless" might have irked, I was certainly not finding it such!!

Effortless? Effortless?! Okay, I might like a little more relaxed than I felt... *

All that was left was a drop down the other side of the motorway and then a flat run for the line: but I couldn't get too excited, there was still most of a kilometre left! I pushed on, pulling away from a lady that I had passed going up the hill, and soon found myself in no-man's land: I couldn't see any runners ahead of me, and there was no one close behind me. I hate that situation at the end of a race: I like a bit of a personal challenge: to either chase someone down, or to keep ahead of someone, so it was only when I turned that final corner and saw that I was on course for a PB that I had incentive to push on and actually sprint the final twenty or so metres.

I stopped my watch at 43:40, four seconds inside my previous best, and the following day it was confirmed as 43:39. So, despite not really feeling too positive about it before, either mentally or physically, it went pretty well! It has definitely given me a mental boost, knowing that my time at BoS wasn't a one-off. I don't have any 10k races scheduled for a while now, so this PB will hang around for a bit, but I now have confidence that I'm continuing to strengthen and improve as a runner, and hopefully by the next time I race the distance I can take a bit more off again!

In the mean time, I've got Exeter's Great West Run (half marathon) in the middle of October, which is dominating my training for the next couple of weeks, and I'm taking part in a winter 5k series in Street, where I'm hoping to go sub-20 by the last race.

* Photo credits: Lainey Whitworth and Nadine Prouse.