Discovering Becks

Back at the beginning of June I won an entry into the British 10K, courtesy of TomTom, by finishing one of these RunningHeroes challenges and what was even better was it fell on a day I had off work! Actually what was the best part was realising how much the entry fee was and knowing I was then running the race for free, student mindset and all.  

I wasn't sure what I wanted from this race. Did I want to push for a PB or did I just want to not care about the time and enjoy myself? I'd made a promise to myself that I was going to get a 10K PB by my birthday next year, but was this really the race to do it? To be honest I probably should have thought about that before deciding to run up Primrose Hill during my long run on Friday....

Photo Credit: TomTomUK

After catching a 7am train, I found the TomTom stand relatively easily where I picked up my #teamTomTom T-shirt and then wandered off to find a race day helper to find out where the my bag drop was located (NB to the lady who pointed to on a map with no context of where that is in relation to where you're currently are isn't particularly helpful). I managed to find my way to the bag drop, checked everything in and wandered back to the TomTom stand where I got chatting to some of the other #teamTomTom runners and a quick photo was taken before we all scattered off to head to find toilets and head to the start line.

The start line was a fair walk away from both of the bag drop locations and I was quite glad I was quite glad for the company of another girl who'd also won her place through RunningHeroes. We finally reached our respective pens, wished each other luck and then I was left on my own. I don't think I'd realised how many people would be running the race and it was at this point I decided that it was probably a race to have fun instead of trying to push around people and aim for a time.

Soon we were off and heading along Piccadilly towards Regents Street, along Pall Mall, around Trafalgar Square, down the Strand and then finally along the embankment towards Big Ben, down and back Westminster Bridge before finishing by Downing Street. The route took in a lot of the big sights of London and went along some of my old running routes which made me miss them a bit. There were also a lot of switch backs and tight corners which aren't the greatest if you're hunting down a PB but there was lots to keep you distracted and 3 water stations (with actual water bottles woop!) to keep you going too.

As I was running along the embankment I glanced and my watch and noticed that if I managed to keep the pace up and pushed through then I might, might, just be able to scrape a PB. So for the last 3 Km I pressed on. With around a quarter of a mile to go I glanced at my watch and saw I had just under 2 minutes to complete the race to get a shiny new PB and tick off one of my goals for the year. So I gave it one last push and crossed the finish line in 46.39. Shaving 13 seconds off my 10K PB.

As I was walking along collecting my medal and goodybag I couldn't tell if I was crying because I was so happy or because of the shear amount of sweat that was now dripping into my eyes. So much sweat! This wasn't a race to hunt down a PB, yes it was relatively flat and there were so many people spectating that the atmosphere was amazing, but with the humity, amount of people running the course and the number of sharp turns and switch backs it was a race to enjoy. And I did enjoy it, I would have enjoyed it even if I hadn't run a PB. That was just the icing on the cake. I guess it just goes to show what you can do when you have the intention of just going out there to have fun.


Overall it was a great race, well organised, plenty of portaloos, brilliant atmosphere and a hefty medal and t-shirt at the end (the goodybag as a whole was a bit meh, especially for the cost of the race, but I think I might have been spoiled from the epic one I received after running the Kingston Breakfast Run last Spring). If you're willing to spend a bit on entry fees for a race to enjoy then I'd definitely recommend it.

Thank you RunningHeroes and TomTom for my place and allowing me to #runthecaptial. I had a blast!

To be honest it's been kind of nice to have a month where training didn't matter so much. I'm feeling excited about RideLondon, training for Berlin and I've even got my thesis writing mojo in check at the moment. The next 12 weeks are going to require some serious organisation, discipline and balance but mentally I'm in a good place to tackle it and at the end of the day it's all just about having fun.