Hertford 10k Race Report - A tale of 3 distances

It was time for eatingtrees' home town race so after a Saturday of gardening, walking, and lots of fresh air, we got up early and headed to Hertford early Sunday morning for a 10k. I had a few doubts about this race before I made my way there, like no ability to enter via this new invention called the World Wide Web and having to rely on stamped addressed envelopes. No chip timing was also a minor point but as I tend to go by my watch time, it doesn't bother me. Stories of gates being locked last year and the race being shortened and also being listed as 'approximate 10k distance' didn't fill me with much confidence either to be honest but it would be a nice day out.

However, I really enjoyed it. It was extremely warm so was delighted that I was doing something silly like the Brighton Marathon (Well Done to Adele and Hesbels) but I felt good as the runners gathered at the school to make their way to the start.

The first km was very slow as there are many runners on a narrow path and by the time the first km post arrived, my watch read 5:45. Hmmm. Nevermind. I plodded on with eatingtrees and saw Mrs HMC and The Boy just before the 2km mark which is always lovely and luckily my watch read 11:05 at the next post. A 5:20 K, that's a bit better. I was holding on to eatingtrees' vest at this point though. He was upping the pace and although I was staying with him, I was finding it tougher than expected.

I had been sent some sunglasses to try out from those lovely people at Polaroid and as yet, the only testing I'd managed was by the pool in Egypt. (They're very good for that by the way). However for this race and my last long training run of 15km, I've been trying these out. I have to say, they're awesome. They don't fog up which has happened when I've worn glasses before (hence running in contact lenses), they didn't rub, and they just sat where they were meant to and did their job. The best thing I can say about them though, is when I inevitably sit on these and break them, I'd actually be tempted to part with some hard cash to replace them! They have a massive range so check them out here.

By the time I'd hit 5km, I felt extremely comfortable. In fact, the next 4 KM's were all between 4:59 and 5:07. I was really enjoying it and I knew that if I actually had 1km to go AND I could keep the pace up, I could be close to a PB but with the Hertford 10k map lists it as 10.2km, My more detailed map using runningahead.com listed it as 10.3km and eatingtrees' Garmin told us it was a touch over 10.1km. Basically. Take your pick! That last km took just over 6 minutes so certainly was longing even if you exclude the last bit which is quite a tremendous hill.

The event was fantastically marshaled and at the finish there were loads of bananas, water, Lucozade and cheering. A thoroughly good day and a time of 52:38 to boot. I was going to be happy with under 55 mins so delighted with that! See you next year!

After that, it was round to eatingtrees' house for shower, lunch, sun time and shisha. A perfect end to a bloody good weekend!