Nigel Barge 10K

Terrible conditions and a hilly course made a fast time in this race unlikely, although I was still hoping for something inside 36 minutes on account of improved fitness. I tried once again to run 3:30 per kilometre and see how long I could keep it up for. Got to the 1K marker in exactly that, but lost a few seconds in the next one which had a long climb. The kilometres were clearly marked on the course so I could see I was losing at least five seconds on my intended pace at each one. I could feel some tiredness in my legs from recent training sessions, and it started to rain heavily on the 5K mark which also slowed me down a bit. I could see my goal time slipping away but was still motivated by a desire for the race to be over. I managed to pick it up again between about 7 and 8K where I passed the leading female, and made up some ground on two runners in front of me before the end. Finishing time was 36:20 which was 6 seconds slower than a month ago in East Kilbride, and gave me an average of 5:50 per mile. Afterwards, though, I noticed I wasn't out of breath at all and didn't even feel like I'd been in a race. I'd probably have done better if I'd taken Thursday off completely but I'll just view the race as a fast-paced training session (in poor conditions) and have another crack at beating 36 next time out. There is some suggestion that the course was actually longer than 10K but that might just be dodgy GPS reception.