After a torn hamstring last November my winter months have been spent doing strengthening work alongside gradually increasing speed and distance.

For 2018 I have decided to focus on 10k as a race distance, do some new events and focus on one race each month rather than race every race.

So the first race on my calendar was The Gainsborough & Morton Striders 10k, based in the village of Morton. The race has a reputation of a well organised event and fast flat course.

On arrival in Morton there was plenty of car parking approximately 10 minutes’ walk from the race HQ and start area in the village hall. After a decent warm up I made my way up to the start line, the event is chip timed and the start area is fairly wide so there was no need to push to the front and be swamped by the speedy runners.

The route was a large rectangular shape with each straight been long and extremely flat, it was a warm day with very little wind so fast times were the order of the day. Personally I find such routes hard work as there is no room for a breather so pacing is more important than on a hillier event were you can at least have a breather on the way down!

I set off at a pace I felt was quick and sustainable for 10k, I decided to run how I felt and not look at my watch as I felt this would put me under pressure to either try and speed up or slow down as I was going ”too fast”. The route passed through a couple of small villages were there was plenty of encouragement from the locals before returning into Morton for the finish.

I crossed the line in a time of 43m47s, finishing in 133rd position out of 753 finishers and 5^th out of 38 in my age category. On looking at my watch I found that my pacing had a maximum variance of 15 seconds between the fastest and slowest miles, I was happy with this and it proves you don’t need to put yourself under technology pressure.

At the finish every finisher was given an excellent goody bag containing a medal, bag of crisps, fruit, sweets, nuts and a bottle of water. In addition the timing company gave everyone a print out of their time and position from a small tent next to the finish timing mats.

All in all a good day at the office for me that gave me confidence in the work I have done through the winter and a good start to the racing season ahead.