Originally I was not going to do this one as I felt I had not done enough training of late, and was struggling with all my running, however as this was a local race I decided I would and managed to enter before they closed the online entry system.

The day started off bright and sunny if not a little cold, the race was due to start at 10.30, so I managed to have a little lay in before getting ready. I left home at 09.30 and had a 20 minute walk to the event, once there it was a simple task of signing in and picking up my race number and timing chip. Once done I met up with some others from my running club, where we had about a half hour wait before the start.

At 10.20 we made our way to the starting line where there was the usual safety briefing and general guidelines of the course, it was to be two laps of St Mary’s island. At 10.30 we were off and it was a gentle start due to the crowd of runners, once the crowd had thinned out, i was able to make some progress and move up the field of runners where I settled down to a comfortable pace.

 

My first two miles were a sub 10 minute mile, however after this I drifted off pace somewhat and slowed down a little to a 10.30 minute pace.

 

 

Although I was aiming for a sub 1 hour finish time, I managed to complete the race in an official time of 1 Hours 3 minutes and 19 seconds, which was better than my last race finish  time, so I am fairly happy with this, it is progress and another race finished.

There is still a way to go in my training, and think I will concentrate on my 10k’s this year, maybe another half marathon and a full would be an epic achievement, I have the SVN Caucus run on the 22nd April so I will see how far I can go for this, the only target here really is a 20 miler finish, but a lot can happen on the day, so we will have to see.

 

My running of late has been a bit hit and miss, to be honest more miss than anything else; however the Maidstone 10k was fast approaching, and I knew I had not trained as much as I should have; but stupidly I thought this would not be too much of a problem, as I had recently completed a half marathon, so I knew I could run the distance (Idiot).

I awoke nice and early on the Sunday morning, and settled in to my routine of getting my kit ready and eating a good solid breakfast of porridge. The race was not due to start until 10.00am so I had plenty of time for last minute checks, I only live about half hour from Maidstone so left home at around 08.15 knowing I would be there at around 09.00, so that I could pick my number up at the registration desk. It was then only a matter using the facilities and relaxing until the start.

 

I was expecting there to be a a lot of runners at this event, but oddly it was fairly quiet

 

 

 

10 o’clock came around, the safety briefing was given and we were off, it has to be said that looking at my splits, the first two miles were OK, mile one was a sub 9 minute mile and mile two just over 10 minutes, however after that I seemed slow right down for miles three and four (around 11 minute mile); I have no idea why this was, as there were no great big hills to contend with. At mile 5 onwards I picked up pace again, giving me a finish time of 1 hour and 3 minutes ( 4 minutes away from a P.B.)

For me this 10k was a hard race, I found myself constantly having to walk sections, I think the issue was not necessarily my fitness level but the lack of strength in the legs, again I can only put this down to the lack of training before hand. lesson learnt is do not take anything for granted, if you want a good race then train for it.

 

So the morning started with me parking at Ebbsfleet Intl. and getting the fast train to St. Pancras and then two tubes to Charing Cross. Once there it was a short walk to Trafalgar square.

Once there it was hand our bags into the Bag drop-off point, and get ready for the race. It took at least 20 minutes to walk to the race point, however despite the cold and needing the loo, the atmosphere was excellent. When we got to the start there was a short talk about the reasons why the race was being run, some motivational speech followed by a bang and blast of the Snow cannon and we were off.

My intention for this race was always to use it as an exercise in getting some extra miles in and to work on a slower pace, so with this in mind I was fairly happy to stay towards the back of the pack. As we progressed up Kingsway, I had to bear off and pop into the Costa Coffee to use their facilities, once this was done it was time to re-join the race.

The race carried on without any dramas and I was soon high fiving the penguins along the strand, once done we headed down Holborn viaduct and passed St Paul’s Cathedral and along to the drink station and then back around to St Paul’s Cathedral and back along Holborn Viaduct to Fletcher Lane, the Strand and then onto Charing Cross towards the finish line where there were free Polar Bear Hugs.

My finish time for this was 1hour 14 minutes, and an awesome medal to boot. All in all this was a really well organised race from start to finish and special thanks has to go to the spectators and marshals for all the cheering they done along the route. On the downside the entry fee to enter was quite high especially when you factor in the travel arrangements.