First was a 6k cross on the beach in Playa de San Juan, well half was on the beach, the other half was on the promenade. The big success for this race was that for the first time I won a trophy, I was fifth in my category and there were trophies for the first five in each category. You can see the trophy in all its glory below:
I have to admit, my probability of success in the race was greatly improved by the fact that there was a very popular duathlon race taking place about 10 kilometres along the coast so while the earlier races had averaged about 200 participants this one only had 72. I finished 10th overall and in my category there were just 15 runners. Nevertheless, I was very glad to win the trophy and I ran a good time, it was 5.8km and I got round in 22:12, averaging 3:50min/km.
Yesterday I was in my hometown, Northampton, conveniently enough the same day as the town's only popular running event. Up until 3 years ago there was no such event at all so I was glad to support the race, although it was clear that the organization could be improved, and as I've found in other races in England the goodie bag was a poor effort, it made the entry fee look very expensive. I hope the event keeps going and that they can make the required improvements (key points: more toilets at start line, make residents better informed of road closures, get more sponsors on board = better goodie bag, set a cutoff for finishing i.e. 90 minutes for 10k) because the town has alot to offer.
Anyway, with the choice of a 5k and 10k race I opted for the 10k. After my 10k training PB I really wanted a race to see what I could do, and perhaps unsurprising, I got a PB! My previous 10k pb in a race was 40:14 some 3 years ago, this time I got round in 39:22 but with a chipped time of 39:11 while I finished in 43rd place of 1,540 runners. I'm glad to have achieved the PB, it's only my second of the year, the other was in the marathon, and I was certainly due in. However, I think there is definitely more to come, I'd been nursing a cold earlier in the week and had an unsettled stomach before the race, less than perfect preparation, but I still managed a solid time. I went out reasonably hard once I'd negotiated the crowds at the start (apparently some people had difficulty reading the signs splitting runners by targeted finish times) and managed to hold things together all the way round, although I was struggling on an uphill section at about 6km and the last uphill bit in the last kilometre. I could hear some footsteps creeping up on me in the last couple of hundred metres but I managed to find something of a sprint finish to hold them off.
I'll be back with another post soon to talk through my plans for running in the next few months, hopefully yesterday's PB will set me up well for more in the next few months.
Until then, happy running!
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