Birmingham BMC 10000m

In the corresponding races both last year and in 2009, I ran two of my fastest 10ks ever (29:55 and 29:58).  Both of those results came well into a marathon build up, with a background of high mileage, 10k sessions and tempo runs. 

This year was very different.  In the last 16 weeks, I’d gone beyond 68 miles in a week just once and there had been very, very little in the way of tempo runs and 10k sessions. 

My previous attempt at a 10,000m at the UK Trials two weeks previously confirmed that this was simply not enough.  I had to reassess where I was at, and what I needed to do to get me back where I needed to be.  My training limitations were not by choice, but I now concede I had made some bad choices in that time.

The week following the trials, I ran by far my biggest weeks mileage for months – 87.  Hardly earth shattering but small steps are what’s needed, especially with my PF still problematic.  Within that, was my first 10k pace session since May: 5 x 1 mile on the road. 

Mission here was to displace that DNF on my Po10 page and get a sub 31min clocking.  Based on my recent Solihull run, 30:30 was a possibility but I think at that stage I was clinging onto the last threads of my winter fitness and more recent evidence suggested sub 31mins would be a more realistic target. 

The race was being paced at 71sec laps for a 29:30 finish, so I sat off that with a 74sec first lap.  The race quickly became a single file affair, with athletes following the man immediately in front.  There was a bit of a gap behind me after 2 laps, but everybody in front of me was on the heels of the man in front.  That 74sec lap was followed by two at 71 and the first km was passed in 3mins exactly.  A second km of exactly 3mins left us on 30min pace with 20% of the race gone.  Things settled down a bit over the next few laps as the pacemaker and Marteletti edged away, and 5000m was passed in 15:12.  I was feeling how I would expect to feel in a well paced 10000m race and was starting to get excited about a step forward in performance. 

With 10 laps to go, I was feeling great and moved in front of Matt Dumigan and consciously made an effort to close up to Jonny Gilby and Ben Jones.  Matt followed me for three laps, then he came around me with 7 to go to do his stint and within no time at all he was moving away from me.  I was starting to work quite hard at that point and through a combination of not enough specific preparation and my hamstring starting to become problematic again, my lap splits slipped quite a bit.  I’d actually felt like I was running a good race here and with 7 laps to go was confident of still running around the 30:40 mark (Matt ran 30:43) so it was disappointing to fall apart and just miss breaking 31mins.  It was after this race that I finally conceded that there was no chance of running a PB this summer now over any distance and essentially, it was a case of season over.  I still had one more British League fixture to take care of however.