Notes
Chichester Priory 10k Race Report.
Self doubt clouded my buildup to this race, mainly because of an off day / result at the Brighton
10k in November.
the plan was to pitch at 8:00/mi till halfway and then go with whatever I had left. which would give
a sub 50 all things being equal.
in reality I made a bit of a mistake in my starting point in the race procession because I started
too far back with people who had no idea what time to expect and this consequently held me up. for
most of the first mile I couldn't actually run faster than about 8:30 because of congestion. by the
time mile 1 was up I had made up a bit of time to finish in 8:05 and had settled into a pretty good
rhythm keeping an eye on my hr to make sure it was not going through the roof. and after that I
didn't obsess over the pace at all just kept a relaxed easy rhythm going. at the end of Mile 2 I was
surprised to see 7:46 but my hr was pretty stable at around 168 / 171 and I was going well so
continued at that relaxed pace posting 7:49 for the 3rd mile.
my Hr average for a 10k should be about 176 and I'd averaged 172 in that last mile. time to open up
a bit and mile 4 fell to 7:25 mile 5 had a nasty hill in so I took a bit of a breather and posted
7:44 and by this time the course was on a long downhill straight towards the finish where I pushed
as hard as I could for a 7:09. the last .2 had 2 nasty turns and some people cut across me so it
wasn't as quick as it could have been 1:24 or 6:06/mi
Observations:
my prediction figures for my last 3 usable runs were 7.87 7.9 and 7.86 mph and I averaged 7.91 so
that seems to work quite well.
probably because I started too far back but I was passing people the whole way.
I do hills much better than I thought (overtook loads of people who seemed to just stop).
my breathing seems to be in a really good pattern: I got a little bit of a stitch during mile 5
after the hill and so I remembered about changing the landing foot / breath ........ but I couldn't
!!! I discovered that I breath in for 3 counts and out for 4 making my breath / footfall alternate.
I didn't know I did this.
I have to say that this was by far the easiest and most pleasurable event I've done.
Ok that goal done, back to 9 minute miles and start attacking a sub 45 before the end of the year.
7:10 average pace. only 25s / mile to find..........
4600 whopee!