I got up in the morning and felt terrible so I did a combination stretching, yoga and warm up session which seemed to help ease of most of the problems.
The course was changed back to the original version, with a tiny detour to go the opposite side of the cathedral to the traditional route.
I went for a lap of the park to try and warm up. I had a massive limp on one side. I tried to move up to my planned race pace of 7-min/mile but couldn't get anywhere near it. I had about another 20 minutes so I tried to do some stretches to loosen it off.
On the start line my hip was still bugging me.
Through the first mile I was feeling really uncomfortable and had half a mind to just pull out and go home. My hip wasn't getting any better and it felt like I was really dragging around. The watch buzzed for the mile mark and a quick look told me it was 6:25. So I was pretty much flying along and the stiff hip certainly wasn't hurting my pace much.
The second mile is uphill. Last year it was mile 1 and I know it is tough. Somewhere here my hip just eased of as if someone had flipped a switch. I was in with a decent group and I could still see the two lead ladies in the group ahead. I was through it in 6:43, pretty much exactly the same pace as for that mile last year.
The third mile includes a turn back on yourself and as I approached that turn I could see I was a lot higher up the field than I expected to be. After the turn I was passing a few people that I expected to be behind. Through the third mile in 6:47 and through 5k in under 21 minutes, I knew I was going too fast but I wasn't struggling with the pace so I kept pushing.
At the 4-mile mark I grabbed a cup of water so I missed when my garmin buzzed. (Turned out to be 7:01).
Mile 5 is uphill into the wind and I was having to push harder. I was making ground on the runners around me even though I knew I was going slower (7:15). I was gaining on the group ahead with the second lady in it. That group started to fracture and string out on the hill so I knew the pace was still good and some of them started to drift back towards me.
Mile 6 is downhill and I got into a bit of a tussle with a Highland Hill Runner who had fallen off the back of that group. I thought I had dropped him but he eased past and made about 10 metres on me. As a car pulled into a junction in front of us he had to chop slightly to go around the back of it and I managed to up my pace slightly to go past him. This took the pace back up to 6:41 and I pushed into as fast a finish as I could manage.
Into the park I could see the second woman just ahead but I couldn't close the gap to her any more and I ended up finishing a place behind her.
I am really pleased with my time of 42:17. That is within 2 minutes of my fastest 10k ever despite not really being in the best running shape. Well inside the 45 minutes I wanted to do this year. And I still think there is plenty more to come.
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