Monday 31 May 2010

BUPA 10K Race Report

What a great mornings work! Did a massive PB, I came home in 43:36 with my half way split being 22:01 meaning I ran a negative split. It was my best all round performance to date and also my best result across the various distances with Fetch giving me a WAVA of 61.58%.

Now for those of you who don't know, and I imagine that will be most of you. WAVA is a mathmatical formula to compare results across race distances, age groups and gender. 100% being the ultimate goal. Due to me being a 26 year old male I am expected to post the super fast times and so a good WAVA is challenging. My focus is on getting my PB's at all distances to at least 60%. At present my PB's and the WAVA's are as follows:

5K - 21:11 - 60.90%
10K - 43:36 - 61.58%
HM - 1:39:32 - 59.49%
Mara - 4:02:26 - 51.53%

So as you can see, the marathon is the glaring poor performance. But will hope to remedy that in November. But enough crystal ball gazing, back to today's run. Lauren gave me a lift down to Benfleet station and I got on the quiet train at half 7 to give myself plenty of time to get to the start line. I Made it to St James Park before the masses and so avoided any long toilet queues then went about finding the Red B Zone. I was over an hour early so had a leisurely walk down past Buckingham Palace through the various coloured starting zones to Red B, the second group from the front.

Lara and Mike joined me about half 9 and we had a nice catch up and listened to the Announcer and the music before the gun went off. The big names were announced over the Tannoy system, and for some reason mine, Lara's and Mike's names were all missed. A small oversight on an otherwise perfect day. Once the super fast guys had sped into the distance it was time for our group to be released. I said goodbye and good luck to Lara and Mike and I was off!

I was hoping for 45mins but was worried that 46mins was going to be the more likely outcome, a PB was the absolute minimum requirement for today. My PB was over 6months old and I had done alot of running and PBing since then and so was confident I would beat 47:15. Set off with the goal of 4Min 30 Sec Km. I am a mile man but when the race and the markers are in Km's I go with them instead. First few Km's ticked through nicely, roads were not too crowded with the various staggered starts and I was feeling good. I was on or just slightly faster than my target Km splits and began to pick it up. I went through 5Km about 30 seconds up on my 45Min target and felt good.

By this stage it was just a case of running strong and maintaining the pace and a big PB would be mine. I was now going through each Km about 10secs faster than target and was keen to continue this to the finish. Went though the arch and under the 400m to go barrier and increased the pace, hoping to pass some more people on my way into the finish. Managed to cross the line still running strong and feeling like there was more in the tank, but was absolutely over the moon with my efforts and the time!

I really enjoyed the BUPA 10K, not just for the great time I posted, but it was really well organised, the setting was beautiful and the medal and T-Shirt at the end were fantastic. Can't recommend this race highly enough! Will be back in 2011.

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