I had been going well in training and the indications were that I was in good shape to contend with improving that 10k pb further still. My final 'effort' training session prior to the race was last Thursday and I felt good in what was intended to be a final sharpener. The distance of the session was reduced to 2 x 1.5 miles, and I would have been happy to average anywhere in the region of 5 minute mileing. As it was, chasing down Rob Affleck off a 20 second handicap, I went substantially quicker than that. My first mile was recorded at 4:46 and my average pace over the full 3 mile of volume came out at 4:53 pace. It was a good final confidence booster ahead of race day.
All I needed to do now was tick over with some easy mileage and to make it to the race in one piece. I managed to do the latter, however the busy and hectic Christmas time saw me unable to run on Christmas Day or Boxing Day at all. Usually I would have liked to have done at least a few miles on one, if not both of the days leading up to a big race, but I didn't see it as any disaster and hoped I would get away with it and feel fresher for the extra rest.
As it was, this was far from the case. I woke up with the first symptoms of a cold, which has seen me unable to run since race day as it has progressively got worse, and I awoke feeling lethargic and far from "up for it" as I would like to have been.
I had hoped that once I had warmed up and got a couple of kilometres in that I might grow into the race, but again things didn't quite go that way as I got my tactics wrong and went off too hard through the first 2k and suffered through the middle section of the race as a result.
Thankfully, I managed to find something from 7k to the finish to recover a few positions and to record a respectable time in the circumstances. I came home in 31:59 for 23rd position.
It is perhaps a sign of how far I have come recently that I am now disappointed at having broken 32 minutes, but not doing a bit more too. I actually went 1 second faster than at Wesham 10k a month previous, however it was a completely different type of run. At Wesham I had run a controlled and relaxed race from first to last and almost cruised around for 32 minutes dead and could without doubt have gone quicker. This time out, I ran the same time, but the pace and rhythm was all over the place and I really had to graft and grind the time out with every last ounce of energy. In the end though, I would say that it is a fairly decent result to round off a successful year, and something I can definitely use to kick on further in 2017.
Total mileage for the week (to Sunday 25th): 56
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:24
Total mileage so far this month (December): 241
Total mileage so far 2016: 3345
Average miles per day 2016: 9.35
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