Bushy Park 10k
Sunday 1 March 2009, 9:45 pm
This post is quite possibly overkill, since pretty much everyone who reads this blog will have read my multiple tweets on this subject.
I ran my second 10k race today in Bushy Park.
I ran my previous (and first) 10k in 1:00:10. When I started training for this run at the beginning of the year, I was hoping to get around a 50:00 time. That may have been slightly overambitious. At any rate, I certainly overtrained. Towards the end of last month, I was feeling a lot of pain in my butt and hips. Turns out it was piriformis syndrome. I spent a a week and a half not running at all and another two weeks running on a elliptical trainer and then a treadmill.
I spent the week before the race road running again. Mostly taking it easy, so as not to injure myself again. Given that I had spent time out being injured, I’d revised my expectations. I was hoping to run the 10k in 55:00.
The race went fairly well. I knew I was pushing myself hard, and had to adjust my pace a few times before I hit my stride. After about 5k, my back was feeling a bit tight, but that seemed to disappear after I concentrated on my breathing for a while. At the end of the race, my watch showed 52:36. When the results (284KB Word file) came in, my official time was 52:45 — over a seven minute improvement over my last 10k time. I’m pretty pleased with that.
Still, I’m hoping my next 10k will be a sub-50. I’m thinking the trick will be not to overtrain.
Sunday 1 March 2009, 10:34 pm
I ran the 10k in Bushy Park today too! It was my first 10k and I enjoyed it so much i’ve signed up for another one in 3 weeks! Congrats for your great time :)
Monday 2 March 2009, 8:30 am
Thanks, Sophie! It was definitely a very enjoyable race.
I’ve now signed up for the Kingston Breakfast Run (8.2 miles) in five weeks time. I haven’t signed up for another 10k yet.
Monday 2 March 2009, 9:48 am
It’s a shame there wasn’t any goody bags!!
I’d heard about the Kingston run, I don’t like running on road though! Are you aiming for a time? Good luck for it!
I’m doing this race: http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/events/viewevent.asp?sp=&v=2&EN=48490
It says it’s hilly so it probably wont be as easy as Bushy Park yesterday!