Newquay 10k road race

Posted on October 7, 2007
Filed Under - leisure |

I took part in the Newquay 10k road race this morning, organised by the Newquay Road Runners. It’s one of the cheeriest races I’ve been in, lots of smiles and good humour. The weather was warm, which kept spectators and marshalls in good spirits. I liked the goodie bag and memento at the end. Instead of a medal, we all got a little wine glass with the details of the race printed on it. In the goodie bag we practically had a packed lunch: bottle of water, orange, banana, ready salted crisps, box of raisins and two (two!) bars of milk chocolate. Really quite a decent haul.

So, now the moment of truth - my time. Well, it was 59:44. My Personal Worst for a road race over that distance! Granted it was a tough, hilly course but the reason my time was so bad was the lack of training and preparation. Obviously I was aware of this and I knew I would be slow - although I didn’t think I’d be quite that slow (I was aiming for a modest sub-55 mins). However, I did enjoy myself and the fact that I did any running at all in the last few weeks is due to having this race in the calendar.

Another positive to come out of the race is the fact that my pacing was much better than it usually is. Normally I start off too fast and get slower and slower. This time I decided to run a negative split and increase the pace at the halfway point if I was feeling good. Usually in the second half of a race lots of people overtake me, especially towards the end. This time no-one overtook me in the second half of the race, although I managed to pick off quite a few people myself (probably the old and infirm). I must say, though, that with about half a mile to go my legs suddenly went leaden and my breathing got very laboured so I had to work very hard in that last part of the race.

All in all, an enjoyable Sunday morning out, and lots to work on fitness-wise!

Stumble it!

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