Rob's Running Blog

City of Manchester 10k Road Race – Cold – 54m 36s PB

The City of Manchester 10k at the Regional Athletics Stadium, Sportcity, East Manchester – only my second race ever, had done well in training so thought I would do really well, so here is the story!

Got up really early, as I had a taxi booked for 8am to get to Sportcity in East Manchester in plenty of time. The weather looked really cold and overcast, so I was wondering if I would get soaked before even starting, as I just turned up already changed for the race.

Got there and things were a bit quiet as I was quite early, but there were a few other runners wandering around. I went into the complex/warm up track behind the stadium and it was warmer in there and I located the toilets – important, as nerves seem to make me want to keep using the loo, so wanted to make sure I didn’t get caught short on the starting line.

I did some stretches and did a lap round the warmup track, but not too much, then after a last nip to the loo made my way out on to the track and walked round a few times, doing some stretches, then entered the starting lineup with a few minutes to go. I was fairly near the front, with hindsight it might have been an idea to go nearer the back.

Anyway, off we went, the race started by the Lord Mayor of Manchester, and raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. I was going to try to pace myself, but got a bit caught up at first, saw someone start walking almost as soon as we’d left the complex (not 100m covered) was surprised by that, but just tried to keep to my own pace, as I was both overtaking and being overtaken. I checked my Garmin, which had clocked 1.09km before the first official KM marker came into sight, and it was this that would play tricks on my mind during the race, as well as the people overtaking me.

I did manage to get into a rhythm, but was never really comfortable throughout the race, and was thankful that I’d stuck it out through a lot of hard training sessions, which gave me the endurance, and more importantly the mental toughness to keep going even when my legs and lungs were telling me they’d had enough! At one point a guy who must have been 30 years older than me (well maybe 25!) drew level with me, and just went past, I tried to keep with him, or at least keep him in sight, but he soon vanished, so I was left to pick off less speedy runners, at one point playing cat and mouse with a female runner, overtaking her, only for her to get her revenge a few minutes later! Well done that lady, but she did help me go a little faster for that stretch!

I was relieved to come round to the last KM marker and start the re-entry into the Regional Athletics Stadium at Sportcity, I tried to inject some extra pace and compete with the people sprinting towards the line but really had nothing left, I crossed the line and was glad to stop and get my breath back, before wandering off to get some water, my chip removed, and my goody bag! Once I had recovered a little I went to the stadium entry to clap in the rest of the runners, it brought a lump to my throat to see the sheer determination on their faces, they deserved a clap and cheer. And then this chap in a skeleton suit ran in, so I shouted “Go skeleton!” and he turned to me and said he was 18 stone when he started the race which gave me a chuckle 🙂

My chip time was 54:36, a definite and dramatic improvement from the 58:12 I ran in the BUPA Great Manchester Run on May 18th – but having run a little faster in training I though t the cool race conditions would drag me along to something much faster. So remains to be seen whether racing will actually make me run faster – although on a side note, my Garmin had clocked 10.2k, am not sure if that was inaccuracy, or because my weaving around the course, going wide etc, added that much extra distance – which at my pace is another minute.

I heard some good advice on http://runnersforum.co.uk though, which was not to compare race and training times too much, as the conditions are so different, what with having to overtake people etc.

All in all am pleased to have got a PB and broke 55 minutes – now the hard work begins to break 50, no idea if I can do much better than that, but it’s something to go for now and feel it is something within my abilities! Will just try to do it a minute at a time, and have my eye on a couple of races between now and the Great Yorkshire run in September.