My first race of 2021!! The first time pinning a number on since the Mid Cheshire 5k in August 2020, 10 months ago and my first 10k since running the Tatton 10k as part of my recovery from a calf strain in August 2019, 22 months ago!

I have been training for Ironman UK which is (hopefully) in 4 weeks time. This training has been massively reduced as I have been recovering from knee tendonitis, this resulted in no running between 18th Oct 2020 – 31st Jan 2021. It has only been this past 5 weeks where I have been able to get back into a more regular partner of training, prior to that it has just been easy pace, flat off-road runs.

So needless to say, I didn’t go into this race in peak condition, it’s not an A, B or even C race, just something I am using as a speed session. That being said, I still planned to target my 10k PB of 37:48 set in February 20219 at….. you guessed it, Tatton Park 10k I do enjoy running this course because it is close to home and a beautiful place to run but the course is not flat and has a few switchbacks and a small off-road section, it’s not the fastest, lets put it that way.

Racing on a Wednesday night was something new to me, all bar four of my races have been in the morning. It was half term and I was off work with my 5yr old daughter so I was up and about most of the day and it was the hottest day of the year so far, at 7:30pm the temperature was 26’c but cloudy, which made it very muggy.

Splits: 6:02, 6:01, 6:04, 6:09, 5:53, 6:08, 5:47

I was planning on running around sub 38 maybe go for sub 37 but for some reason, I was in the blue wave (sub 50), I did sign up for the Tatton Park 10k back in November as an end of year wind down race which must have been why I put a slower predicted time down, this race got cancelled due to the second UK lockdown, I deferred to March which again got cancelled due to the thrid UK lockdown. Kinda lucky for me as I was injured in November and only just getting up to 4 mile easy runs by March.

The blue wave was second to go off behind the red wave. There were about 40 runners in the red wave. As part of the COVID secure racing plan, we lined up in rows of two, 1 meter apart and were set off a couple of seconds apart. I was on the third row back in the blue wave.

The first mile was flat and fast, I wasn’t putting much effort in at this stage but had to hold my pace back as I was in the low 5:20’s. In the first few hundred yards, I passed the 4 blue wave runners and then spent the next 2 miles weaving my way through the red wave runners or targets as I called them.

Mile 1 finished under the trees just after the first switchback, I briefly lost GPS and a little time on the turn which brought my pace down to 6:02/mi, it was probably under 6min pace in reality.

The second mile comes onto the main road which runs through the park, the first three quarters are downhill before turning off to run uphill and around a roundabout. Initially, the watch was reading 7:45/mi pace but I knew this was off due to the GPS drop under the trees, so I held my pace steady and it quickly dropped back down to 5:55/mi before I went on the downhill. I could have pushed it down this hill but I decided to hold back at 6:00/mi pace to try and save something for the final mile which is back up this hill.

Mile 3 comes back off the roundabout, down a small hill, back up another hill, off-road for a small loop through some trees (GPS bombed out here too), down a hill and finishes going back uphill. Undulating is the word for this mile. In my five previous runnings of this race, my pace has always slipped on this mile, it’s up and down, twisty and a bit off-road, I had it in my head from the start that mile 3 would NOT be slower today. Well, it was slower than the first two but only by 2 seconds so I was pleased with that.

Mile 4, there is no polite way to put it, it’s a bastard! the full mile is uphill, not steep or big but with 44ft of gain, it is not an easy mile to hold 6:00/mi pace. This is another mile where I traditionally drop time, today I dropped 9 seconds which isn’t massive but I knew I had lost a few seconds here and there for the first 4 mile splits. I was feeling hot now, dripping with sweat, my vest was sticking to me and my mouth was dry.

Mile 5 is the total opposite of mile 4, it comes on the second switchback and runs back down the main path we just ran up, back down that hill. A chance to catch your breath after the hill or a chance to put the hammer down and make up some time? I went for the latter, by now I could see 5 runners in front of me all going at a similar pace so I used them to pace off and try to catch.

Mile 6 is still on the main path but back up the hill we came down in mile 2 with 66ft of gain, at this stage I felt really hot, very tired and my legs were saying enough was enough with this pace. My breathing didn’t feel too bad and looking at my heart rate data now, I went into mile 6 at 166bpm, 15bpm under my max HR despite the warm muggy weather. This tells me that the aerobic engine is there and capable of more once the legs are better recovered. Anyway, needless to say, this was my second slowest mile, more time lost but not as much of a loss as previous outings around here. I caught and passed one guy on the hill but was not gaining or losing any ground of the other 4 guys in front. I think we were all as wrecked as each other but I knew my net time will be quicker than theirs as I started a couple of minutes after them.

The final quarter of a mile was flat, I wanted to give it a sprint finish or a burst of pace, I did run 5:47/mi pace but the legs didn’t have much left by then.

I crossed the line in a gun time of 38:53 but chip time of 37:30 which gave me an 18sec PB and was good enough for 11th place overall, 2nd in my age group.

At first, I felt a little disappointed with 37:30, I had wanted to run closer to 36:** but then when I thought about it, I am only 5 weeks back into proper training after being out for 17 weeks. It was hot and humid and racing a 10k on a course with 174ft of elevation and switchbacks is not going to show my full potential. In the end, I was really happy to have been able to pin a number on and line up at a race after so long. Something we all took for granted 18 months ago.

I now fully believe I can run sub 37 on a faster course and with more dedicated 10k training.