Race report.
prdavies1949
Posts: 326 Member
Yesterday I ran in my local 10k here in Exeter UK. I was so looking forward to this race as it was my first race last year after I started running. Last year I managed to finish the race, on my last legs, in 1:16:44 I was last but one, but absolutely delighted to have run 10k.
This year I was aiming to actually race not just hobble round, I have steadily built up my speed till I can run 8:30min/miles and as most of the runners in this race are club athletes, I would need to be at my best to finish in a respectable place. I set my targets to finish in better than 55 min and in the first 300 places.
My training had gone well but as the date neared so did the storm clouds! By Saturday the forecast was horrible, and we awoke on Sunday morning to gales and heavy rain. I suspected that I was not going to run as fast as I wanted. The internet said the race was going ahead, but with changes. The start was delayed for 1 hour to let the tide go out but part of the course was still flooded so they had to change the course and could no longer guarantee the distance.
We set off on the parts of the course still usable. We had to run down paths till we reached floods then turn round and run back. On the narrow paths this led to some crowding, the usable paths were covered in large deep puddles and the wind was fierce. In fact at one stage I learned what "drafting" was all about. I was running at the front of a group, there were five experienced club runners tucked in behind me. It was very hard running into the wind but then on the last mile and a half we were running with the wind behind us.
As I reached the last couple of hundred yards, I became involved in a group sprint finish, one guy beat me, but I held off a couple of others and felt great. I looked at my polar and was amazed by my time 51:05. My delight was short lived, according to my GPS we had only run 6.04 miles. I was gutted.
Today I have had time to reflect, I finished in 251st place overall, and my time adjusted to 10k would have been 52:44, so not so bad but I still feel slightly cheated. Common sense tells me that the organisers did a great job in getting the race on in the first place, given the terrible weather but I really did want to compare my progress from last year.
On a lighter note, the strangest sight was the youngsters at the 5 mile drinks station trying to get very wet runners to take cups of water in pouring rain.
This year I was aiming to actually race not just hobble round, I have steadily built up my speed till I can run 8:30min/miles and as most of the runners in this race are club athletes, I would need to be at my best to finish in a respectable place. I set my targets to finish in better than 55 min and in the first 300 places.
My training had gone well but as the date neared so did the storm clouds! By Saturday the forecast was horrible, and we awoke on Sunday morning to gales and heavy rain. I suspected that I was not going to run as fast as I wanted. The internet said the race was going ahead, but with changes. The start was delayed for 1 hour to let the tide go out but part of the course was still flooded so they had to change the course and could no longer guarantee the distance.
We set off on the parts of the course still usable. We had to run down paths till we reached floods then turn round and run back. On the narrow paths this led to some crowding, the usable paths were covered in large deep puddles and the wind was fierce. In fact at one stage I learned what "drafting" was all about. I was running at the front of a group, there were five experienced club runners tucked in behind me. It was very hard running into the wind but then on the last mile and a half we were running with the wind behind us.
As I reached the last couple of hundred yards, I became involved in a group sprint finish, one guy beat me, but I held off a couple of others and felt great. I looked at my polar and was amazed by my time 51:05. My delight was short lived, according to my GPS we had only run 6.04 miles. I was gutted.
Today I have had time to reflect, I finished in 251st place overall, and my time adjusted to 10k would have been 52:44, so not so bad but I still feel slightly cheated. Common sense tells me that the organisers did a great job in getting the race on in the first place, given the terrible weather but I really did want to compare my progress from last year.
On a lighter note, the strangest sight was the youngsters at the 5 mile drinks station trying to get very wet runners to take cups of water in pouring rain.
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Replies
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I think you ran a great race in horrible conditions! Congrats.0
