The Boxing Day 10k Revival

The Boxing Day 10k is my oldest running tradition, dating back to before a time when I ran regularly. It’s probably the only Christmas tradition which is truly mine too, though sadly the tradition slowly disappeared in recent years. My parents moved out from my childhood home in 2017, meaning that my preferred 10k route was no longer on my doorstep. I still intended to do a 10k on an alternative route that year, but struck down by a nasty cold, I was only able to do a steady 5k instead. In 2018 I was less than a week away from the New Year’s Day Liverbird Marathon, so moved the 10k forward to Christmas Eve, whilst travel prevented a Boxing Day run last year. A week ago it looked like travel would once again prevent the 10k this year, but as those plans were cancelled, I at least had the opportunity to revive the Boxing Day 10k today.

There are a couple of things you need to know about the Boxing Day 10k. Firstly, it has never been 10k. My old route in Coventry was 10.2k, and today’s route was the 12k loop I used for my Sunday runs in the first lockdown. Secondly, whilst there are no other runners or closed roads, I approach it as a race, albeit one for which I prepare particularly poorly for due to the indulgences of Christmas Day. But I always feel a little better about enjoying myself on Boxing Day if I put in a big effort during the run, and with traffic typically very quiet on Boxing Day morning, the opportunity is there for a fast time if I’m in good running form.

My Boxing Day run in 2016 is probably in my top 5 running performances ever. My time of 41:46 was a course PB of 35 seconds, which was a huge improvement given how many times I’d taken on that route.

Today though promised a much bigger improvement. Every aspect of my running has improved since the first lockdown, meaning that I was able to knock more than 2 minutes off my best time from lockdown when I ran the route in November. That run hadn’t been a flat out effort though, so I knew that if I gave it my best today, a course PB was virtually guaranteed.

One of the differences between today’s route and my old Boxing Day 10k route is that today’s route is much more exposed to the wind, and for the first 5k today, that wind was mainly behind me. That always makes pace calculations tricky – the numbers looked good, but how good were my legs? Was I pushing too hard, or indeed, not enough?

The hill up to Hampton on the Hill would be the moment of truth, as indeed it always is on this route. Today I had the added challenge of the fact that I had now turned into a headwind, and I simply had to embrace the fact that the next mile was going to hurt. I reminded myself that the final stretch of the hill is the steepest and therefore I needed to keep something back. By the time I reached that section, I started reminding myself that I had a nice downhill stretch just around the corner.

By the time I reached 10k, I was starting to feel the extent of my effort, but having committed to a 12k route, I didn’t want to let things slip now. I tried to focus on my form, and maintained decent splits despite the increasing fatigue. When I reached the final 200m I attempted a sprint which never fully materialised, which in many respects is the best type of sprint at the end of a run like this. If you can only marginally lift your pace, it shows you’ve come pretty close to emptying the tank. And the result was a time of 54:54 – almost 3 minutes faster than November, more than 5 minutes faster than May and more than 12 minutes faster than the first time I attempted this route in March. All told, a nice reward for a year which though awful in so many ways has at least gotten me back on track when it comes to my running.