On the 11th June, I raced the Colshaw Hall 10k in Cheshire. This was my first race since running a PB at London Marathon 8 weeks ago. In that time, I had taken a week off to allow some recovery time, obviously lowered the weekly mileage, and switched focus to shorter but faster intervals. My goal for the summer was to try and beat my 10k PB of 37:30 which I set back in June 2021 at the Chase The Sun 10k at Tatton Park.

Based on the recent training and having already set 5 mile, half marathon, and a marathon PB this spring, I had high hopes of running a sub 37 this summer. I signed up for the Colshaw Hall 10k knowing that the course is relatively flat and fast. I did run this race back in 2017 setting what was then a PB of 41:53.

My goal for today was to set off at 5:50/mi pace, the same pace I had run at the Alsager 5 Mile back in February. I figured I could try to hold that pace for the extra 1.2 miles or worst case, I drop 10-15secs over that last mile, either case would set me up for a strong PB.

The weather on race day wasn’t ideal for a 10k-paced effort with temperatures hitting 23’c by the 9:30am start time. My choice of a white singlet on a hot sweaty race would have been a good entry for a wet T-shirt competition by the end.

Splits: 5:49, 5:58, 6:02, 6:43, 6:24, 6:14, 5:40

So hot weather or not, I set off at the 5:50/mi pace and hit that over the first mile. The second mile dipped under that by 8secs due to a 50ft climb at the beginning of mile 2. The 6yrs between racing here had clearly erased that hill from my memory.

Dropping a few seconds in that second mile wasn’t anything to worry about, I knew why I had lost some time there. I hadn’t counted on backing up that time loss by dropping another 12secs in the third mile, no real excuses for that one. Maybe I could blame the hot weather? It’s always something else that slows us down right? never our training or fitness etc.

From then on, I couldn’t get back to the goal pace of 5:50/mi or remotely close to it. I think the heat did play a part in that but also wondered whether my change of training to short intervals than what I typically do may be catching up with me in the latter stages.

Part way through the 4th mile, I think around the 3.5 mile mark, my heart race was racing, not surprisingly halfway through a 10k but also my Achilles was rubbing on the back of my shoe. At that point, I decided to stop and slacken the laces on my shoe to take some of the pressure off the achilles. I thought that would at least give me a better shot at running the rest of the race at goal pace rather than risking a blister. Needless to say, more time was lost there.

In the end, I crossed the line in 38:23 finishing in 20th overall and 3rd in my age group. Almost a minute off my current PB and just over 80secs from the sub 37 goal. This was my slowest 10k race in 4 and a half years but I do feel like I smashed the wet T-Shirt competition (see below).

I have another attempt at the 10k PB at the Wrexham 10k in 6 weeks, hopefully, the weather will be better suited to a fast race and I can get more speed work in before then.

All in all, not my race today but I think the majority of the field said the same. As always though, Run Cheshire put on a great event. Very well organised and marshaled by the volunteers. I may well come back to this one in 2024 as I hear they are tweaking the course to cut out that hill in the second mile which should make it an even faster course (on paper).