Glasgow Women's 10k 2015

So here we go. Could I turn my recent 5km form into a new PB for the 10k distance? Last Monday night's training run suggested yes, I could, but anything can happen on the day, and I just really, really wanted to beat that 1:11:04 time, and I'll be honest that I worried I was putting a bit too much pressure on myself. What if I went out too fast and struggled in the latter half? What if the weather was so vile that my time was affected without any input from myself? What if I tripped in a crowded section and went flying? What if I just... walked, for no real reason? What if? What if? What if? I spent Saturday panic-eating Curly Wurly bars, which isn't my cleverest plan. I started mentally berating myself for doing something so pointless, and tried to get hold of myself before it escalated. Successfully, I may add: my kcal count for the whole day on Saturday was still under 2000, and while it was significantly higher than what I've been averaging each day this year so far, it wasn't high enough to derail me. I should have a little faith in myself.

Race day. The weather forecast was for rain showers throughout, but not too cold, so I dressed in a tshirt and vest over the top, and my capris of course, and grabbed my visor cap, to keep the worst of the rain showers off my specs. I also got an old race tshirt to wear over the top as an extra layer to discard when the race starts - another benefit of losing a load of weight, by the way, is that you're left with a large choice of discardable too-big tshirts. ;-) I ate a proper full meal, early, and packed up the stuff I needed - then, got on the road. I arrived about an hour early, and sat in the car for a bit while it rained and rained outside. Eventually the rain started to ease, so I headed out to the baggage claim area in the park and then up to the start area. Going over early was a purposeful decision on my part; when I signed up, some time ago, I put a predicted time that had me in the slowest start pen, and I knew I wanted to be right at the front, so I could focus on my run, rather than being caught in a crowd of people wanting to walk from the outset. I was on my own, and didn't spot anyone I knew, but that was fine, I was nervous about the race, and just wanted it to get going.

Once the whole 'mass group warm-up to music' was done (shudder), the race got started at 10am - in our starting wave, we just shuffled along slowly until we got to the start line and waited for our turn. 10:18 arrived, and we were off, with a nice clear road ahead of us. Of course, loads of women shot off, and those around me tried to settle into their runs. It seemed like nobody at all around me was running a similar pace to me, and I just got my head down and tried to focus only on myself. The woman I'd been stood next to at the start shot off out of sight within half a km, and not to ruin my immense story-telling style, I passed her at 9kms. :-)

Anyway, after about 1km, the rain started. It had stayed dry in the entire hour before we started, so actually wasn't too unwelcome during the run, but thankfully it stayed light, and very, very sporadic. For the most part, it was dry and sunny, with enough of a breeze to be cooling without too difficult to run in. Perfect. I ran past the local residents who always line the streets near the beginning with cups of water, but grabbed a bottle at the 'official' water station at a little after 2 miles. I was generally pleased with how my run was going at this stage, but wary about what was to come - however, it was just at this point that I spotted Dave and Susan who had come out to cheer me on! That gave me a big smile, and a nice lift, and I'm pretty sure I picked my pace up a tiny bit, too. The road down to the Pollok park entrance was okay, and my watch beeped 5kms at around 33:02. That, people, is a 5km PB!!!! I was absolutely gobsmacked, but knew that the course was about to get tough for me, so stay focussed, and just keep running.

It's a long flat run through Pollok, and I felt myself slowing down. I was thinking about the hills up ahead, more than I was thinking about the part I was running, and I was feeling a wee bit uncertain and challenged. My heart rate was now steadily maintaining at about 190bpm - that's pretty damn high! And the hills were to come. Thankfully, along this road, I spotted Suzanne marshalling, and she gave me a shout-out and I waved back. "Looking good!" she cried. I have no idea if this was a lie, or was a comment on the fact she hasn't seen me for a wee while, haha, but it certainly helped give me a boost at a section I was struggling with.

Grabbed a bottle of water at the second water station just before the first (smaller) hill, and kept running, taking a couple of mouthfuls as I went. I had been passing lots and lots of walkers up to now, and the hill was no different; I was determined to run, so kept my eyes ahead, and just went for it. I had definitely slowed down in this 7th km, and my watch beeped the first km slower than 7 minutes (7:08). Even though all my other kms has been 6:-something, I hadn't kept track on how much of a cushion I had to a sub-70 minute finish time, which was my target, so I decided I needed to make sure that the next km was as close to 7 minutes as possible. It was the one with the 'big' hill in, and I'd ran it in 7:35 on Monday.

As the hill approached, I noticed two women at the base, walking, and one woman slwoly running between me and them. I thought to myself: "I BET she's going to start walking just as she draws level to those 3, and I won't have a gap to run through - I'd best move to the side now..." - and kept going. Moments later, it struck me what had just happened: my internal voice had made the decision that I was running the whole way up the hill without walking. When has my internal voice ever said positive things to me during a race?!! It was at this point, roughly 7.3kms into the race, that I knew I could run the whole thing without walking. I felt a rush of emotion, and as I crested the hill I didn't know whether to cry, or cheer out loud, at what I was acheiving. I did neither - don't count yer chickens, although I'll be honest that now I knew I would run the rest of the race, regardless of how slow and shuffly I might become... At the top of the hill, around 7.5kms my Garmin told me that as it stood right then, I was predicted to complete the 8th km in 7:32. No fecking chance. It was a long steady descent now to get out of the park, and I picked my pace up. The 8th km buzzed 7:00 - fantastic!!

Then the turn to exit the park, and now things are hurting. Not "ow ow ow" hurting, just "aaaaah is it time to stop now?" hurting. Smiled for the official cameraman, then realised I was going to see Dave and Susan again as I left the park, and possibly Julie if she had come along. So, head up, and keep going - I came out of the park, turned the corner, and there the three of them were, cheering for me. Just epic, thanks guys. x x They put a huge grin on my face, and I checked my watch, then gave them a big thumbs-up. I had worked out, just before leaving the park, than I had a 'comfortable' time to run 1 mile, to make a 70 minute finish time. In the training run, I had been able to pick up my pace along here, despite it being mentally very tough to keep running along Dumbreck Road for over 1km - so I knew it was possible today too. Just keep on running...

Along here, I passed the woman from the start line, and that gave me the biggest mental boost. Onwards, onwards... another shout out from Laura spectating at the Cartha RFC exit to Pollok, and another big smile from me. Approaching the motorway sliproad, I spotted one of the girls from the clyderunners running club up ahead, and with about 400m to go, I decided it would be awesome for us to run the finish straight together, so I picked up my pace, caught her, said hi, and said 'let's finish the race' - she looked up, smiled, then indicated for me to go on. It's a bit pants to say, but I felt so ready for this last bit, (and so ready for it to be finished and see what time I could get, lol) that I didn't take any persuading, and I ran past her and onto Mosspark Blvd. :-)

I didn't want to look at my watch here, but it made no difference because the finish arch had a huge clock over the top with the race time of each coloured wave - and as I had started just at the front of my wave, I knew my time was almost exactly what was displayed. Even still, and even with knowing what I had known with 1 mile to go, I was absolutely floored to realise I was going to not only beat my PB, but also smash it into pieces.

Across the line, and my finish time was 1:07:02 - four full minutes off my PB. I kept moving forward, slowly, with a feeling of incredulousness. What had just happened? I had ran the entire race, I had smashed my PB, I had... I had believed in myself. So I quickly grabbed my phone to text a photo of my garmin screen to the person who never stopped believing in me; he replied that he had predicted a 3 minute PB, but 4?? :-) Julie texted to find out how I did, and Dave and Susan headed off for lunch; I was starting to feel cold, and I was finding it hard to really understand what had happened lol, so after a quick catch-up with some of the Tollcross parkrun girls, I headed up to the baggage claim area to get my warm hoody.

Slowly walking back to the car, updating facebook, replying to messages, the rain properly started. I managed to get into my car as the downpour started, and reading some facebook inbox messages, I couldn't help but get a bit overwhelmed with everything. It really feels like things are finally on track. For all of 2014, I struggled to run a mile without walking, or finish a parkrun in less than 40 minutes - at the start of 2015 I was managing about 41 minutes - and here I am, running 10kms without walking, and running a 33 minute 5k followed immediately by a 34 minute 5k. Couldn't be prouder of the journey I'm taking, and the way I'm going about things. It's ALL about fixing the thinking, about addressing the black dog that has been my companion for many years, and about taking steps to be accountable to myself. The more I find that belief in myself, the more everything else around me falls into place.



apt picture found randomly online

If you'd told me at the beginning of the year that within 20 weeks I would be running a 67 minute 10k, I'd have laughed hysterically. If you told me on Saturday evening that the next day I would be running a 67 minute 10k, I'd have told you you were a crazy optimist, but quite some way off mark. Today, I'm trying to work out how soon I can hit 65 minutes.

Thanks so much to everyone for your support. Let's see where I can go from here!! ....oh yeah, right, a half marathon in less than 2 weeks.... *goes a bit wide-eyed and flails anew*

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My previous Women's 10k times:

2012 - 1:12:55 - position 5638/8384
2013 - 1:11:04 - position 3954/5895
2014 - 1:26:17 - position 5125/6120
2015 - 1:07:02 - position 2636/4761