The SheRunsHeRuns Bluewater 10K – 15th June 2008

When the alarm went off this morning at 5.45 I really didn’t feel like getting up and running my first 10k race of the year. It is amazing how quicker you get up though when you know you really have to, as opposed to being able to hit the snooze button several times!

After a quick shower and some good stretching to wake the achilles tendons up I had my normal pre-race breakfast of porridge with banana and a pint of water. I soon knew I was nervous, as the normal nervous cough and feeling of slight sickness became to come over me. My main concern was that I simply wasn’t ready for the race and hadn’t prepared well enough since my stress fracture last year. I kept reminding myself that I’d already run a couple of 10k’s in training, and that I was only going to treat this race as a tough training session.

Pre-start organisation

Luckily at 6.30 on a Sunday morning the M25 is pretty quiet, so getting from my house to Bluewater didn’t take too long. For those of you that don’t know, Bluewater is the largest retail shopping centre in Europe. On a Sunday it open at 10am, so with the race starting at 8am, participants and their supporters were the only people arriving there. Surprisingly though, there was still quite a queue of traffic entering the site. Probably due to half of the ring road being closed for the race route. We therefore decided to ignore the marshals and cut through to another car park – saving us about 15 minutes.

Now in it’s second year, it was pretty obvious that there were a lot more competitors taking part than last year – with a lot more activity around the warm-up area. This year there were plenty of queues for the portaloos – with about a 5-10 minute wait.

The race day registration tent didn’t seem to be too busy, with most activity looking like youngsters registering for the 2k fun run (including my 6 year old and 3 year old – and their mum!).

I didn’t get too much of a chance to soak up the atmosphere, as I was more concerned with sorting the kids out, going for a 5 minute jog, stretching, queuing for the toilet, and finding out where my parents had got to (they were coming to cheer us all on).

Instructions on the tannoy were clear though, and with about 20 minutes to go I made my way to the start, which was about a 5 minute walk/jog from the warm-up area.

It was also one of those times that I thanked God for being a man, as the bushes and grass verge near the start allowed us men to take another nature break!

The start

There were two lanes for the start – a blue lane for the men, and a pink lane for the women. SheRunsHeRuns is apparently the only race to have separate starts for men and women. I’m not sure if I like it or not… but as the shop that organises it is called ‘SheRunsHeRuns’ you can’t blame for them for arranging it this way!

I decided to go of at a steady pace, trying to aim for 8 minute miles. To be honest though, I didn’t really have much of an idea how fast I was going. You now how it is at the start of a race… I was more interested in trying to get in a good position and avoid the runners that had shall we say slightly higher expectations than their real ability!

The first few kilometers

The Bluewater 10K course was in reverse from last year this time round, which made the first few kilometers much easier than last year. Last year there was a big hill after about 2K… this year this would come near the end of the race, meaning that the first 3-4K was relatively flat.

It still amazes me how many people start to walk after 2K.. people that even look pretty fit. I’ve come to the conclusion that these are treadmill runners. Although I’m happy to be shot down on that theory!

I still felt pretty good after the first 3K, maintaining what felt a good steady pace, and certainly well within myself.

The middle of the race

This is where it started to get tougher. Within a few hundred miles of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge at Dartford the road started to go up hill… and this didn’t stop for about the next 5K. It was pretty much constantly uphill to just past the half way mark.

Still feeling pretty good, I started to overtake more people than were overtaking me, and I began to notice just how hard other people were breathing. My breathing was still relaxed… if anything it was the legs that were tired.

The first water station came just after 5K, and I grabbed a bottle of water. I didn’t drink too much before the start of the race (due to needing a toilet break at 8K in this race last year!), so in the hot morning, I felt pretty dry mouthed (but not too dehydrated).

I then made 2 mistakes… the first of which was trying to drink too much. I only had about 3 mouthfuls but I think the water was too cold for my hot stomach! I suddenly felt like it was going to come straight back up again. The second mistake was to pour some of the water over my head and down my back. My god it was cold! I think my heart literally stopped for about 2 seconds… and I couldn’t breath. It took a good couple of minutes to get my breathing rhythm back. Lesson learnt!

After about 6K we turned back on to a main road and then the rolling hill started. The majority was downhill but then there would be hard uphill sections before gentler downhill sections. More and more people were starting to tire.

The last couple of K

Returning back on to the same section of road we started on the gradient started to settle down. It was now time to try and muster a bit more strength to hold the pace I had maintained throughout the race. It was getting tricky now.

I then made the mistake of thinking the 8K mark was the 9K mark. I was gutted when I saw the 9K mark! I noticed my pace dip noticeably for half a K (especially during a little uphill segment). The 200M to go sign spurned me on though, and for the first time in a race I finished strong, sprinting for the line.

Overall…

I was really happy with my race. I arrived on the day wit a painful right calf and to be honest was really concerned that I’d injure myself… maybe even repeating last year’s stress fracture. But going of at a comfortable pace that I knew I could hold really did my confidence the world of good. My breathing was good throughout (apart from the water incident!), and my form felt good too. In the end the calf gave me no problem whatsoever. In fact m legs felt the best they’ve ever felt after a race. I really did reap the benefits of the strengthening exercises, stretches and move to midfoot striking that I’ve been working on for the last few months.

As with last year, the organisation of the Bluewater 10K couldn’t really be faulted. The only thing I would recommend to people is to get their with plenty of time to spare.

Probably the only thing that lets the race down is the lack of on course spectators. This is probably due to the early start and also the fact that most of the course takes place through an industrial estate (it’s not as bad as it sounds!) and the countryside (and a shopping centre!). I’ll definitely be back next year.

If you want to see the route of the SheRunsHeRuns Bluewater 10K with this Google Earth fly by. I’ve added markers at each mile mark (the Lap 1 marker is the start of th race). And as for the first race with my Garmin Forerunner 305… it showed the course being 6.19 miles! 0.01 miles out. Not bad eh?!

And my performance? 47 minutes, 46 seconds. 330th out of 1646 in total! Another personal best time – and I was only trying to keep a good reasonable pace. 45 minutes is definitely my target (albeit a tough one) by the end of the year.