No matter how good you are at something, there’s always a million people better than you
– Homer Simpson

Saturday 17th August was a good day, I ran a PB in a local club 10km event. I was a whole 2 minutes faster than my previous 10k time. Then again I was pretty slow compared to all the others in my age group. Just to put this into perspective, the current world record for a 10km road race is currently 26:44 (Yes that’s 26mins). British Athlete Mo Farah (aka MObot) runs the same distance on track (10,000m) in 26:46, the track world record is held by Ethiopian runner named Kenenisa Bekele. Previous record holder for 10,000m and still number two is the great Haile Gebrselassie in 26:22. The New Zealand Record holder for 10,000m is Dick Quax in 27:41 with Jonathan Wyatt holding the 10km road title in 28:04. (Source Athletics NZ – http://www.anzrankings.org.nz/site/records_con ).

In the senior men category in which I ran there were 40 Wellington club affiliated runners (There were also other age group runners, Senior men, Masters etc which made the whole field to be about 120 runners). Evan Cooper from Wellington Harriers won the race in a time of 31:39. Glen Hughes from Wellington Scottish came second in 31:46. I was 36th in the senior field and 77th overall with my PB time of 42:00 (yes I was bang on 42:00) – my previous 10km time was around 44 or close to 45mins (which I ran in London this year) so being able getting it down to 42mins was a bonus. The race itself was run on a 2km lap course which made it somewhat easier to pace myself. I wanted to run as close to 4:00min per Km as possible. I had two club mates who was around my pace so we had a great race between the three of us and I was able to hold off both of them and take my “PB win”.

Above are my 1 Km splits, note that odd laps were slightly uphill gradient hence the time being a tad slow and the even laps of course coming down and being faster. This had a pretty tiring effect on the legs overall. I made my move at the 8km mark and ran up the hill fast and let go on the down. Net result an even average of 4:05min Per Km. This is one the great things about being part of a club, it gives you an opportunity to compete in regional events also if you become a racing member you get your own timing tag! If you want to know more about joining a club check out Wellington Scottish or come around to the Wellington Waterfront on a Tuesday at 5:30 to take part in the Waterfront 5k run and a chat.

Until next time! happy running..