Guest blogger, SportyGirl, reports back on last week’s Bushy 10K and her sub-50 mission.
 
Despite having completed my first marathon this year, nothing makes me as uncomfortable as training for a 10k.  People think this statement is crazy, however, in the world of 10k racing and respectable completion times, this distance is well outside of my comfort zone. 

I would genuinely like to run that little bit slower but perhaps run twice as far.  And having settled quite nicely into 10 minute miles for the marathon, even the thought of getting miles in at under 8 and a half minutes was enough to break me out in a sweat.
 
As training commenced I realised I was right – I do hate 10k training!  But like anything, as you work hard and improve, it all becomes a bit easier and a bit more enjoyable as various mini training goals get achieved.  I was encouraged by my brother Ben to work some interval sessions into my weeks training – 60 second sprints followed by 60 seconds of rest, in his words, ‘do this until you’re sick’! 

Well two things – firstly, you look like a crazy person sprinting around the park and then stopping over and over again, and secondly – I’m all for no pain no gain but I think pushing myself to his suggested level is a bit much.  But I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how this did help my overall speed. 

So the overall goal was to break 53 minutes.  My training times told me this was do-able, but my brother had other goals for me.  He was convinced I could get closer to 50 minutes, and I was then in return convinced that he was in fact insane.  So on race day, he decided to ‘do me a favour’ and run with me as my very own personal pacemaker and coach. 

After a rather quick first mile, we settled into a comfortable and fairly consistent pace and I knew sub 53 was mine!  Ben was there pushing me all the way, and coaching me through various spots of the course that were up and down hill, giving me mini targets of other competitors that we could chase down and kept me focused for the first 8km.  This helped much more than I expected and I would totally recommend running an event with someone far quicker than you to pull you along. 

The last 2km was just about giving it everything I had left, and I can confirm that last km was truly painful!  But with a finishing time of 51.03 I surpassed my own expectations.  But now it feels like I’m so close to breaking 50 minutes it would be rude to deny myself of this, so 10k training has once again commenced and in less than three weeks time I will give it a go at the Battersea Transcendence 10k.  I still hate 10k training!

Results of our 10K Smackdown: SportyGirl took 3min 15sec off her PB while LazyGirl took 4min 13sec off her 10K PB. Game on for round two.