BUPA London 10000

I've had a few days now to reflect on Monday's BUPA London 10000.

How did I get on against my targets ? Well, I ran all the way, finished the race, and enjoyed myself. And my brother also finished, and I think he enjoyed the race too. The other targets: well my finish time was 57 minutes exactly, 2mins 40 slower than last year, and 3mins 30 slower than my best time for the distance. So not so good.

So in one way I'm disappointed. But, looking back at my running since the marathon, I haven't been close to running at that pace for 10k, in fact Monday's run was my fastest 10k this year by more than a minute. So maybe my targets were a little optimistic for this particular race. But I'm convinced I can run faster than 53:30 some time and will be training hard for next time.

So, the race itself. We showed up a little later in Green Park than we should have, and by the time my brother had dropped his baggage and we'd both been to the toilet, it was 10:50 and we had to scuttle along to the start. Unfortunately as we were late arriving we only managed to fit in at the back of the 6th band of runners when we should have been in the 4th band.

It took 20 minutes for the elites and the rest of the people in front of us to start before finally we were off. Almost immediately we were getting blocked by slower runners and having to dodge and weave around people, going up on to the pavement to get past, at the risk of a twisted ankle. The first kilometre passed in 6m:18s, painfully slow. Coming down Embankment the route widened and the field started to thin out a little allowing more scope to overtake, and kilometres 2 and 3 were more respectable in 5:26 and 5:27 respectively. Not the nice steady start to a 10K you ideally want though.

The pace was getting a little too fast for my brother as we passed Sophie taking photographs near Waterloo Bridge, and just after the 3km water station we said our goodbyes. I more or less kept my pace during kilometre 4, 5:29 and headed up the hill into the City, reaching the halfway mark in 28:16, a reasonable time given our slow start.

I had convinced myself that from the halfway mark the route was entirely level or downhill and that I could gain some time in the second half of the race but it didn't feel particularly downhill and perhaps due to the heat or just my lack of fitness I was struggling to keep up the pace of the earlier kilometres. 5:47 for the sixth km and 5:41 for the seventh.

As I came back down onto the Embankment again and passed the 7km water station I was feeling pretty down but seeing Sophie at Waterloo bridge again cheered me up, and then a spectator at around the 8km mark caught my eye and said firmly, and quite correctly, "come on, not far now" which spurred me on even more. Kilometre 8 took me 5:43 and kilometre 9, 5:49. Turning off Embankment into Horseguards

Parade confirmed I really wasn't far from the finish now and, while I didn't manage the sprint finish I'd hoped for, I ran the last kilometre up Whitehall and into the Mall solidly enough in 5:49 to finish in 57:01, later corrected to 57:00 when the official times were published.

An average pace of 9minutes 10seconds per mile. My brother finished in just under 1 hour 3 minutes - he was disappointed too but like me any many others I think he struggled with the heat on the day.

So, disappointed at the time, and I know I can and will do better in future, but an enjoyable run overall. Again the temperature was a little high for comfort, and being blocked at the start probably cost me up to a minute and prevented me running a more even pace. Without wanting to make too many excuses, I've not been training as hard or as often this year so far as I did this time last year. Perhaps on the day I could have run 56 minutes or a little less.

But I think a PB was always going to be a stretch.

Since Monday I've had a couple of midweek lunchtime runs along the river, and today went to Richmond for a change to run a lap in even higher temperatures than last week, bringing my total miles to 472.41 for the year.