Sleaford Striders Summer 10k

I booked a couple of summer Friday evening 10k's earlier in the year when I was all giddy about my running and had been injured in June when the first of these took place at Long Bennington. I have been back running since last month and have lost a couple of kilo's recently so have felt in decent shape - it would be interesting to see how things went...

The first mile of the race was on a single track road that wound for a third of a mile before a nasty rise to a corner and a sharp left - this meant lots of running on grass verges as the field sorted itself out and thankfully by the time I was up and round the corner this had happened and I was able to settle down...sort of !

I also noticed (being a trike rider) that the camber on the single track roads was horrendous , so to keep even footfall the best I could , I kept out of the gutter and ran on the crown of the road. First couple of miles were run at a hard even pace of 6.59m/m each and I couldn't see that many runners in front of me and indeed made steady progress.

The thing about this race is that it's not really flat and there are lots of little draggy parts that go on for a bit as well as bridges and then some brisk downhill sections. When I hit halfway I was under 22 minutes and was yet to struggle. A complete waste of a water bottle at this point confirmed I was OK. As this middle section wore on though, it was becoming harder and harder to maintain pace and I fely myself backing off a little. I can point out though that miles 3, 4 & 5 were completed at exactly the same pace of 7.05m/m !!!!

Hardest part of the race was definately the last mile which had some tough headwind just when you didn't want it and I began to panic a little bit about losing my position - form seemed to go out of the window and I genuinely had to battle for a slowest mile of 7.12.  With six down, I could compose myself as we got back into the centre of Scredington for a non spectacular finish heading into the car park,

Tough course, delighted with 43.50 - my last competitive run as coach says only once a week from now on, so Lincoln Half will just be for fun.

Temp 19C
Windy
Pos 28th/201
Miles
1 - 6.59
2 - 6.59
3 - 7.04
4 - 7.04
5 - 7.04
6 - 7.12
0.2-7.05