Ellenborough 10k

As I mentioned in the previous post, I wasn't really feeling any major after effects of the 50. So on Wednesday evening I travelled through to Maryport for the Ellenborough 10k. After signing on I took the dogs for a bit of a walk/jog/warmup.

I imagined that after a few minutes my legs may fold up underneath me but they actually felt OK. Lining up at the start I was still imagining a terrible run was the most likely outcome. However it actually went very well indeed. The eventual winner was ahead almost from the gun, and the second and third place were also well away. Then there was myself and a gaggle of others around me, running for 4th place.

The course is quite hilly and climbs steadily from 1m to 2m. This climb was sufficient to see three runners pull away from me so I was now in 7th place and running alongside my regular training partner Milly. As the course twisted and turned through narrow country lanes I was running VERY HARD INDEED. My pulse was in the high 170's which is a high as I have ever seen it for a continuous run (rather than during repetition work or hill training). I called out to Milly what my pulse was as he knows my figures and also suggested that I would probably soon be burnt out and dropped.

A short but very steep and twisty drop allowed me to catch the 3 lads just ahead so now I was back in 4th place. I relaxed just a little on some more gentle downhill and this allowed Milly and another teammate, Gareth, to catch up, making a group of about 6 of us. Over a fairly decent climb at 3.5 to 4miles the group was whittled down again to just myself, a local Vet 55 and a lad from Eden Runners. Thinking we wouldn't be caught from behind I was happy to run at these fellas pace and try to beat them with a fast last 5 minutes. Gareth had other ideas though and used the gradual downhill finish to catch and pass us all. I sat on his shoulder for a minute or so but found it too fast a pace to maintain. Luckily Gareth had pulled me clear of the others which meant I was in 5th place and first vet. This is how it remained to the finish, though I had to run flat out right to the line to avoid being caught again.

Time was 37:23 which is 6minute miling. Average pulse was 179. Max pulse 185.

Thinking about these figures I reckon my pulse was artificially high due to fatigue from the 50miler just a few days earlier. I have certainly never raced with such a high pulse before. 172-176 would be what I would normally expect to attain over this length of event. 185 is the highest figure I have seen displayed since the early 1990's when I had a max of 190 odd.

I am reasonably confident that if I race as hard as this at the Dumfries 10k in September I will run at least 10-15seconds a mile faster which will be worth over a minute overall. I would really love to run a 34minute 10k at Dumfries, this is 5:38 per mile so may just be beyond me. There is a rule of thumb that says your 5 x 1mile pace will be your 10k pace and I can currently do 5 x 1 at an average of 5:30 so who knows?