A Freezing 10k – 1:06:40
Posted on Feb 12, 2012 under 10k, 5-10k, All Weather Running, Long Runs, Milestones | No CommentDecided it would be a good idea to try getting up to 10k, and it seemed a fitting way to mark my early bird entry to the City of Manchester/We Love Manchester 10k later in the summmer.
Left the house and it was pretty cold and a bit misty with a threat of rain in the air. Set off down the road walking to warm up while I got a Garmin signal – and walked, and walked, and walked, by the time I had walked about 600m I was getting a bit frustrated as time was starting to slip by. Eventually it got a signal and I set off, aware I was going a bit too quick and also aware of a bit of pain in my feet and lower legs, which seemed to be down to the freezing concrete.
Planned a long looping route that takes in a lot of roads, and not a lot else, but there are a few big inclines over motorway bridges and the like. At 2.5k felt ok, but a bit puffy, and had to keep slowing myself down, reminding myself that the only aim was to reach 10k, not run it in any particular time. Was going OK but when I got to one of the big inclines I wilted a bit and stopped to get my breath, before ploughing on, and would have to stop a couple of times more just to collect my breath. I saw the canal was totally frozen over at one point so it was maybe colder than I thought.
I did start to struggle in the latter stages – after all, I had only just done a fastest of season 5 miler a few days ago and have not run more than 5 miles for a few months. But I kept going, and by the time the Garmin got to 9.7k I was ready for falling over, but somehow staggered the last few hundred metres to post a respectable (at this stage) 1 hour 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
I have the distance, the idea now is to steadily bring the 10k time down with a view to running a good time in the Great Manchester Run, and of course I now have another bite of the cherry later in the year in the We Love Manchester 10k. I may even enter some more races at this rate!