Hard 10k

Today I decided to do a hard run along what I know from previous experience to be a route which is just under 10k route (probably about 9.5k but my Garmin was playing up so I have had to rely on Gmaps pedometer).

10k is my first planned race in March and since I've set my season's goal of breaking 50 minutes for that distance I thought it would be useful to set a benchmark time to see what sort of position I'm starting from.

My time was exactly 49.30mins. This is good from the point of view that if I can get some solid miles under my belt without getting injured, breaking 50 minutes in March will be doable. However, I found running at that speed over that distance to be very tiring (definitely a pronounced negative split) and it serves as a reminder that there's a lot of stamina work to be done if I want to be able to set reasonable times at distances over 10k.

(As an aside, I ran a 48 minute 10k over 15 years ago as a teenager when I was swimming competitively and running the odd road race - I haven't run a 10k since....).

I'll create a seperate updateable post for the route itself.

Now its back to some essay writing. I start back at work tomorrow for what I expect to be a pretty busy few weeks before I have some planned annual leave. This means I only have three clear days (today, Saturday and Sunday) left to complete all three essays!