Edinburgh 10km 2012

The Great Edinburgh Run 10km was today - woke up to a bright, sunny, cloudless sky, albeit pretty cold. Decent weather for a run, really...

The route for the Edinburgh run normally goes through the centre of the city, but because of tramworks etc. this year the route was changed, and seriously it was a killer! I have yet to speak to anyone who doesn't think this course was about as brutal as a 10km can get. Hills aplenty - felt like loooong hills up, short ones down. Just awful, as a route goes.

I ran/walked the whole way, tried to stick to walking the uphill bits, running the flats and the downhills; it didn't always work out that way, but I did okay. It was mentally challenging as well as physically - the course doubled back on itself for long sections twice in the route, so you're faced with all the people who are a couple of kms ahead of you running the other way. Very demotivating.

Still, I made it round, and my time was 77:33. When I dd the GER 10km last year, my time was 82:23, so I'm pleased that I'm showing improvement on such a horrible course, but it's some way outside of my 10km PB, and I know that given the work I've done over the past 12 months, I really ought to have done better. But that was on a much friendlier route.

I was pretty pleased to have made it round under 80 minutes, all things told, and walked slowly home afterwards, reading and replying to texts from friends asking how I got on. I was relieved, and feeling okay, but then one of my friends asked "Did you run the whole way?" and everything just deflated again. *sadface* No, I didn't, and the constant pressure about feeling like I SHOULD be running the whole way is really starting to get to me.

I'm taking a break from running now, for a wee bit. I need to figure out a proper plan for where I go from here. More than that, I need to acknowledge there's NO shame in walking for a bit during a run - and I need to stop letting everyone else's opinion chipping away at me. I want to move onwards and upwards, and if that happens by focussing more on my running speed rather than being so anxious about the distance, then so be it. The rest of the world can take their expectations and shove 'em, lol.