We Love Manchester 10k - Race Report

I am not a fan of 10k's. I find them the hardest of all races to figure out in my head. It's long enough to need a plan, not long enough to correct yourself if you stuff it up. It's an all or nothing race, and due to overwhelming confidence in my abilities to get round, I haven't actually ever done any training for one.  

So speaking of stuffing it up, I made huge errors in my first ever 10k and today I wanted to atone for them. 58mins to beat. I desperately wanted 55 something. 50 would have been amazing but I revised that down after doing no training whatsoever. So, with a decent race strategy today was my opportunity to find out what my base is. Turns out it's 55:38. I'll take that thank you very much. I can work on that sub 50 now. I will, I promise.

I had approached this race with much trepidation, last years problems with the start and distance were at the back of my mind but I, rightly or wrongly, assumed that lessons would be learnt and this year all would be well. 

Course: A winding and undulating trot through the industrial hinterlands of East Manchester. Landmarks of note include a massive ASDA, a gas tower, several derelict warehouses, a boarded up pub, some tower blocks, the Ethiad Stadium from several angles and two confused looking blokes smoking a spliff. I'm not sure if it was the running that confused them or the spliff. 

Strategy: I actually had some breakfast this time, I ran at a comfortable pace the whole way and I ran negative splits, unintentionally, although I would have tried to do it anyway but for some reason my watch is lapping in miles but showing me pace in km which meant I had no real idea what I was doing. I didn't need to stop and I managed a cracking sprint finish. 

A tiny me gearing up for my sprint finale. 

Niggles: I'm still recovering from a chest infection about 3 weeks ago and I found breathing hard at times. Course was good though, nothing much to blame the organisers for, except a lack of food in the goody bag and a need for slightly clearer marking on the bits through the Ethiad campus as finished runners kept cycling into and walking into the runners just about to finish. Oh and when they lost the keys to the car park gates and none of us could get out at the end. 

Final Thoughts: Despite quite a bleak backdrop it was actually pretty enjoyable. I would definitely run it again, and I really liked the finish in the Athletics Stadium. 

Love Running, Hate Running, Love Running

My relationship with running is one of those teenage romance style ones. Sometimes I love it. I love it so much that it takes over my life in the all consuming way that the first throes of a passionate relationship do. I'll get up early and run for miles and come back and feel awesome. I'll run a race, and everything will just click, my legs will feel full of energy and power and at the end of it I feel like a hero. I will spend all my time running or strength training. 

Then again, sometimes I'll run to the end of my road, want to cry because I just don't want to be wearing Lycra and running and wonder how, just two days previously I felt like I could achieve anything when running  0.5km kills me. These are the days that lead to long periods of inactivity. My Runkeeper is frantic bursts of running interspersed by weeks where it looks like I just vanished. This also leads to me never really achieving my goals. The muscles and power and speed I build up during my intense training is often lost during inactivity and hence I often perform less well that I believe I can. 

I've always been like this too. At school I was a reasonably accomplished athlete. I competed in National Cross Country competitions and in National Athletics ones too. I even won a few medals. I regularly ran 5km in 22mins and I barely tried. (As a side point, I know that's big-headed, I do, but I really was reasonably good and naturally talented. Then I discovered alcohol, smoking and boys and the enjoyment of spending Saturday morning earning money, not losing my shoes in muddy fields in deepest Gloucestershire.) 

Anyway, I digress.

 I used to feel like this even then. Some days would be enjoyable, and some days I'd try and convince my mum I was sick so I didn't have to get on a school bus. Once or twice, when it became apparent mid-run that this wasn't my day, I'd feign an injury and drop out.

I often felt like this was quite singular to me. I often spoke to other runners both in my former running life and in this one who tried to sympathise and told me they too just couldn't be arsed. No,no I said it's not lethargy, it's deepest loathing. Oh shush, they said, it's all the same thing. 

Recently however, my eyes have been opened and I have been on runs with other people when they have hit the wall and have played my part in dragging them round, and in turn they have helped me when I have hit that 0.5km WTF barrier and helped me keep going. Even when I've cried and begged them to let me stop. These are the best running partners, who truly get when you're struggling and treat it as normal, not showering you with pity and offering you excuses to turn round and head home.  

It's hard to run when you really can't find your mojo, when failure is slapping you in the face at every turn and when, sometimes the enormity of what you're trying to achieve becomes overwhelming, but good running mates can make a huge difference. One other thing I learnt this week, even a bad run can turn into a great one when you finish it, the sense of achievement is overwhelming.

Running goals

My running goals are these:

Marathon: sub 4hrs (3:59:59 totally counts).  Current: 4:56

Half marathon: 1:45. Current 2:15

10km: 45:00

5km: 22:00 Current: 26:27

800m: 2:45 Current: 3:10

There are others too and these are not based on science. I haven't plugged a pace into a calculator and then calculated how fast I should be running each distance. These are where I would like to be, for me. I don't know if they're achievable or not. We shall see. 

All the people, so many people...

Photo credit: South Manchester parkrun

...and they all go hand in hand, hand in hand through their parkrun. 

Just in case you're not a huge Blur fan, I've altered those lyrics slightly. I am going to talk about parkrun though, because well, it's amazing. 

Every Saturday morning at 9am, up and down the UK (and in some other countries too) thousands of people go to their local park and run a timed, free 5km run. Yup, you heard. FREE. it's made possible by an army of volunteers all of whom give up their Saturday morning to organise a run. No matter what the weather, and in some parts of the UK it can be pretty grim, pretty regularly. 

My home parkrun is South Manchester and it's run at Platt Fields park. On the last Saturday of the month the local running club organise pacers, so that those of you who want to achieve a PB can do so and it's this kind of selflessness that is the embodiment of the parkrun spirit. Everyone is genuinely interested in you having an exceptional time. Or as exceptional as you can given it's Manchester and it'll most probably be raining. 

Which brings me to Saturday morning. I woke up at 6am to the sounds of thrumming rain and the distinct feeling that I would much rather stay in bed than go and run. Plus, despite the fact it's mostly run on tarmacked paths South Manchester does have about 1km run on a muddy path with a couple of sizable puddles. I burrowed back under the duvet. A short while later I dragged my backside out of bed. The rain had virtually stopped, and although no self-respecting Mancunian would assume that would remain the case for longer than about 15 mins I got myself dressed, ate a couple of pieces of toast with jam and inhaled a coffee. Still no more rain. At 8:30 I was at Platt Fields running my regular pre-parkrun route. It was at this point I realised I had an unignorable pain in my left calf. At this point I debated just going home, but it was pacing day and although I was pretty sure my PB hopes were through, I thought I could run slow. Enjoy the run. 

Fortunately the rain had stopped and there was even a hint of sunlight. As the crowds gathered and the pre race brief was done , I started to feel the adrenaline flowing and off we went. 

26:27 mins later I was back and 40 seconds under my previous PB. Which I was pleased with, as you are. The best thing though was the marshalling which pushed me round, The achy leg nagged at me the entire time but I managed to just tell it to shut up, and when I thought about sacking it off and hobbling back to collect my bag a cheery person would tell me to keep going and I would. 

This for me is why I suspect I'm starting to enjoy running. The social aspect of it is lovely, and even though I don't know many people yet, I still feel like I'm part of something. This isn't unique to South Manchester either, I ran Worcester a few weeks back and that was equally awesome. There's something truly lovely about 400 people forgoing a lie in in favour of running for the sheer joy of it. And every now and then, a PB. 

Running reluctantly

I am a runner.

I am a reluctant runner.

Except. Well, maybe that's not true anymore.

A month ago I ran a marathon. I signed for for said ridiculous endeavour in a bid to lose weight. And because my friend Martin ran a marathon and I thought, "well if he can do it, so can I." I mean he bought a pair of proper trainers about two days before the marathon.

And throughout my training, when I bothered doing it, and didn't sack it off in favour of, well, just about anything else, I really didn't love it. I occasionally liked it, mostly it bored me to tears and I usually ended up undoing all the good work by inhaling carbs when I returned.

Unfortunately, during my training my sister got engaged and planned a reasonably quick wedding and asked me to be her bridesmaid. Which means that there's 6 months to her wedding and she made me pick a bridesmaid dress 3 weeks before the marathon. At my thinnest.

So now I have to keep running, else the bloody thing won't zip up and I'll be walking down the aisle behind my sister with my bra on show. They say don't upstage the bride. This is double in the case if my sister, who can throw a mean punch and was always better than me at Judo.

All of which makes me sound like a reluctant runner. But then a funny thing happened. I joined a running club. I've been twice, consecutively, which is a high level of commitment for me. It's fun. Which is not a description I thought I'd use. I've had gaspy conversations about Homeland, Breaking Bad, marathons, trainers, beer and carb loading. And I've been able to run faster than I ever thought possible. In fact last week I averaged 8.54m/m for 6 miles. I used to run 10.13m/m. So I feel good about running. And maybe I'm not so reluctant about it anymore, because I'm pretty sure, on Tuesday night, I'll be wearing my trainers and lining up alongside an army of runners, preparing to run for no reason other than because we can.