Bedgebury Forest 10k

Well, yesterday was the Bedgebury Forest 10k. This is a race I have run for the two previous years and each year I have got an almost identical time ( 59:06 and 59:04).

Bedgebury is a bit hilly and all off road, some of it on tracks and some through grass (and I don't mean paths !) so it is slower than a road 10k.

I really wasn't sure how I would do this year. This isn't one of the races I'm particularly targeting so my "tapering" consisted of running 30 miles this week and 6 days in a row... not the sort of thing you would normally do !

I entered in a wave slower than my predicted time and I think this was a bit of a mistake. The first part is quite narrow and it was a bit frustrating getting stuck behind people who were running in groups but taking up the whole width of the path without leaving space for anyone to pass them.

This brings me to my second moan....... I don't have any problems with people wearing headphones and listening to music when they run... but having the volume up so loud that hey are oblivious to everything round them in a race is dangerous. I saw a few instances where headphone wearers were obviously unaware of the people immediately around them and switched to another part of the track causing a collision...

Anyway, I will learn for next year and make sure I'm in a wave for my predicted time :)

This is also the first time that I used the function on my watch to race against myself. I downloaded last years data back on to my watch and used that as my course. This meant that I could see at any point if I was in front or behind where I was at that point last year. I found this really useful, in someways more useful than just setting a pace time because it did take in to account the hills !

I didn't carry water with me so I did stop at the water points for a drink..... and at the second one to wash the flies down that I had ended up swallowing (not nice...)

So, I finished in 56:25 knocking 2:39 off my previous PB for the course... looks like the training is working and I'm starting to get faster :)