My second 10k!

This is what I had been revving up for all week – and I didn’t disappoint myself. I ran 10k in under 1 hour! 59 minutes 57 seconds to be precise )

Exactly how I went about this is not how I recommend anyone else try. Essentially I decided about half way through that I really wanted to finish my run in under an hour. Looking back it wasn’t very smart, but I really wanted to do it and have something to be proud of and spur me on.

So I started at 9km/h for the first 2km. This really dragged along – I couldn’t run in full stride, but I knew I had to hold back to cover the distance. Then I ran at 10km/h for 3km. When I reached the halfway point I realised that the time on the clock was 31:20. This was when I started working out how much faster running I needed to do to finish in under 1 hour. Mental arithmetic has never been my strong point, let alone in the middle of a 10k run!

My second 10k run

In the end I had to run at 11km/h for 2k and even that wasn’t quite enough. Although I was amazed how well I ran at that pace. All the training I’ve done in 4k and 6k runs has clearly built up my stamina. At the end it was the final 1/2 kilometre and I knew I might not quite make it so I sped up to 10.5km/h to make sure. And finally crossed the line with 3 seconds to spare )

It was a fantastic feeling. And I’ve been looking forward to writing about it. It’s a real milestone. I really feel I might have a chance at doing the full 21km in under 2 hours. I’m going to do my very best shot. Now all I need are some sponsors to impress! I must go write some letters…

Good luck to all of you reading this – I like to kid myself I’ve got an audience.