First Race of the year

Nottingham Holme 10k

So on Sunday the 10th March 24 it was my first race of the year, the winter’s training has been good, no knocks, niggles, or any illness, so I was feeling confident to give this a good go 👍🏻 sadly I can’t control the weather conditions and on the day they where awful! But I didn’t let this put me off my race plan I was still gonna give this a good crack and see what I’ve got.

A view of the lake on arrival, skys looking very gray and dank..

Walking around to the starting line to collect my bib number.

5k race got underway, raining now and wind picking up..

Warm up done and I make my way to the start line, gun goes and we start. I soon find myself at the front and in the lead pack, the 1st and 2nd guys soon pull away so that race is between those 2, I find myself with a group of 6 guys so I settle in the pack, but within 1/2 a mile or so the pack starts to slow, around 6:05 pace, now at that point I remember making a decision to myself, do I stay in this pack or push on, I decided to push on so I went the front of the pack and kicked on, got my pace back to around 5:48 min mile, but I was running on my own, I was fine with that so pressed on, within the next 1/2 mile or so 2 of the other guys had caught me back up and we worked together for the majority of the first lap ( up until 5k)

Now when we came through 5k ( I came through in 18:10 ) the one big factor here was the weather conditions had worsened, driving rain and brutal head winds, this really made us work, the pace was slipping away and I really had to battle and dig deep, the 2 other guys who I was running with started to pull away and I couldn’t go with them, so I sat at the pace I could manage in the wind which was around 6:20 min mile, but I knew when we hit the turn around point we’d have back wind so I held on for that point, but just before the turn around I got over taken by 2 other guys, so respect to them cause that was tough going, we turned and it was the long stretch to the finish now so I dug in and kept telling myself to pump those arms and get on your toes! So I sorted my form and got my legs moving again for the final push, felt loads better on that last stretch and managed to pick the pace up again.

The last turn around before the 1/4 mile run to the line, working right through the line and crossed in 37:16, my 2nd fastest 10k ever. 8th position overall and 2nd vet 40, I’ll take that in those conditions 👍🏻🏃🏼‍♂️🌬️🌧️💨