I arrived at the Northbrook 10k today in an unusual situation. This was the first time I had entered the event, yet I knew the roads better than almost anyone who wasn’t wearing a Northbrook vest. Between 2008 and 2012, virtually every run I did incorporated the roads of today’s route, more than half of those runs were 10k’s and many of those were raced as solo time trials. Between 2012 and 2016, I was living in London but almost always raced my 10k route whenever I came home. Therefore I not only had familiarity with the roads, I also knew the feeling of running them at the pace I would hopefully be able to sustain today.
I therefore arrived feeling good about the run which lay in store. I always enjoy running these roads, and I think they’ve played a big role in determining the type of runner I’ve become. Not everyone enjoys rolling hills but I love them. Partly that’s because almost any set of rolling hills can evoke memories of running these roads, but also because I’m so well practiced at them that I can run them effectively.
One of the two unknowns was what the event itself would be like, albeit I had a fairly good idea from the pre-race emails. This is very much a club 10k run. Almost everyone there was wearing a club vest, to the extent I wondered whether I could compete for the honour of being the first non-club runner home, purely because of how few of us there were. I’m not actually sure how that went, as it doesn’t seem possible to apply a ‘No club’ filter to the race results, but I didn’t see many non-club vests when I crossed the line. Club 10k’s offer everything you need from a running event without any of the unnecessary extras. There was no pre-race warm up, and the pre-race briefing mainly stuck to a few safety instructions.
The other unknown was how my hip flexor would feel. Whilst it has generally been better recently, when I’m doing certain yoga poses like Child’s Pose, I can still feel a lot more tightness in my left hip than my right hip, so I know I’m not over it yet. The short jog from the car park to the start told me everything I needed to know. There was no restriction of my movement, but there was a low level pain. Probably only a 2 or 3 out of 10, but enough to sound a note of caution.
I absolutely loved the start of the route. It is on the lowest slopes of a hill, so you are going uphill immediately. It is the type of thing that the big events would almost never do, but I like any type of quirk in an event. Any thoughts anyone had about easing into the run were immediately out of the window, and my heart rate was into zone 5 within a minute.
Had I not been expecting this, it might have thrown me off my plan. However, I had factored the start and every other hill into my strategy. Whilst there’s almost no flat along the route, none of the hills are especially long or steep. If you are feeling good, you should be able to sustain a good pace on the uphills, safe in the knowledge that you’ll soon have a downhill to give yourself a bit of respite.
There were more than 500 runners taking part, but one of the benefits of having so many club runners in the field is that most of them were realistic about how close to the front to position themselves at the start, and also most of them were experienced enough to know how to pace their efforts. I therefore quickly found myself surrounded by runners I would be with through to the end of the race, and we settled into a familiar pattern. I would push a slightly faster pace on the uphills, but would take the downhills slightly easier. My hip flexor felt more of an issue on the downhills, and my caution also gave me the opportunity for a little recovery too.
That was until 2km to go. By then, all of the climbing had been done, so I began to gradually wind up my pace. I couldn’t find a proper sprint at the end, but did at least record my fastest kilometre of the day. My official time was 42:14, which all things considered I’m pretty pleased with. My pacing was spot on, and though I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t given how well I knew the route. On a similar route I was less familiar with, I might have struggled to go under 23 minutes, but as it was my average pace was only slightly slower than my two most recent parkruns.
My hip flexor hasn’t been good since the end of the run, which is a bit of a frustrating pattern at the moment. I can only get back to the type of runner I want to be by doing some harder efforts, and yet every time I do, the injury seems to flare up again. I’m going to abandon my plans to run tomorrow and swim instead, in the hope that it feels better after a bit more cross-training and strength and conditioning work.
The better feeling after the run was the enjoyment of the event. I’m thinking about whether this year might be the year to join a local running club. Whilst this event was open to non-club runners, there are a few other events which are only for the local clubs which I suspect would be a lot of fun. Obviously the club runs, access to athletics tracks and ability to car share with club mates to get to events are other benefits. Given I’m cycling more than running at the moment, now is not the time to join, but once I’ve done my next Marathon and the clocks have gone back, that might be the time to make a decision.
Scorpo Stories 