Saturday morning saw me lining up for my first "proper" 10k race this year – I've done a couple recently, including the Nike We Own the Night women's run and the Bupa 10k, but those were both done as training runs, albeit hard ones. This one, one of the many organised by the Sri Chinmoy running club, was more a proper test of form, and I'm glad to report it went well – though somewhat frustratingly I was seven whole seconds outside my PB.
I can't decide whether to be very happy about that as I wasn't sure I was going to get anywhere near it, or annoyed that I came so close to breaking it. I was well inside it at the 5k mark, but alas suffered with a slight stitch and grimaced my way around the third and fourth laps of Battersea Park. I wish I could blame a large breakfast but since it was an 8am race, I hadn't had any – I think it was more just the effort and some uneven breathing. Does anyone else find that once they start thinking about their breathing, they suddenly appear to be utterly incapable of doing it? Helpful, that.
Anyway it was a good race, I finished fifth and even got a small trophy. Then Sunday saw me doing a lovely easy eight-mile run – there is nothing as relaxing as a post-race run where you have every excuse in the world to take the pace as easy as you like. Then Junior parkrun with my eldest daughter again, and rather a lot of cake. For the record, my current favourite post-run cake is the Riverford banana bread. Add raisins/chocolate chips protein powder as appropriate, and scoff knowing you have earned it. Albeit perhaps not earned quite as much of it as I consumed …
