This one’s for me

Most of the updates on here over the last couple of months have been regarding ‘the 13 Challenge’ – my fund-raiser for 2013 which involves a pile of half-marathons and a few other bits.

Today I raced my first 10k in over 2 years, and the first time since I started training ‘seriously’ with the 2012 marathon in mind. It wasn’t part of the Challenge but one I fancied doing. The free hoodie for doing all 4 RunWales events might have swayed the decision making given I had already entered the other three which were half-marathons……

So this one was for me. an indulgence, a reward for actually getting my act together for the Challenge despite several false starts. Due to not having raced the distance for ages, my PB time was still 45m24s which I recorded back in 2006! But from the split times on the half marathons I knew I could get inside this. The question was by how much.

I really didn’t have a feel for what pace was going to be reasonable (despite the ramblings in my last post) so in the end thought I’d aim for about 6m30s miles but effectively see what happened (legs falling off etc.)

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Weather was pretty good – dry but not too warm, with a light breeze. The route was flat although at that pace I did find it harder work than I expected, but nothing broke. Bangor on a Sunday isn’t a particularly happening place if today was anything to go by, but there were plenty of spectators giving good vocal support around the course and especially on the final straight.

I was pipped at the post but finished a pleasing 25th out of 290 runners in a time of 41m4s which was roughly 6m36s miles. So not bad from my estimate at all 🙂

As with the previous RunWales event, they seem to like green t-shirts.

I got home, showered, got the washing and ironing done and most importantly baked some chocolate orange brownies. My oven seems to be quite conservative with it’s heating although when I got it checked it seems to be spot on. Either way, the mixture was still fluid after the allotted time and so they were returned to the oven for a bit longer.

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They’re still gooky (which I think is right) and very chocolatey. And if I eat them all I’ll definitely need to book in a few more races to burn off the excess calories!!!

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