Today I did my first race of the year, the Water of Life 10k organised by Purple Patch Running, it was an off-road event run alongside the River Thames.
My build up for this had been going pretty well until this week when I seemed to be going backwards, no real speed when needed and legs feeling like I had run a 1000miles each session. So I have to admit I wasn’t really holding out to much hope for today and I think I would have pretty much settled for anytime under 57 minutes, which I know is no real time and shows no real ambition.
The course started and finished at Bisham Abbey, and headed off through Temple to Hurley alongside the Thames and back round to the start. It was a basically flat course, the only hills provided by the bridges over the river, but the ground was soft and in places slippery. In fact so slippery that I went round a bend and slipped, luckily I didn’t fall or twist anything but it did slow me down for a bit while I recovered myself.
Variable weather is always a problem when running, and today was no exception, it was cold and so I went for the long bottoms and base layer and t-shirt plus full trial shoes, after about 7km it decided to hail and then rain and then bring the sun back out, spring time is so fun! But generally I think I got the clothing about right, glass I didn’t go for gloves and for me it was a bit cold for shorts, I know I am a nancy boy!
If you get the chance to do this event next time, or the half marathon they run alongside it I would say do it, it is very well organised, the marshals are super friendly, the course is good and very easy on the eye all you need to make it perfect is some warm sunshine.
My time, oh yeah well I managed to drag myself round in 52 minutes 55 seconds, nothing record breaking but ok I think for now it left me finishing 65th out of 288.
Three Times The Effort 