Mark Wong’s bits of the interweb

Completed the Bupa London 10k today. Was fun and very well organised, although I lost the 10k in 48 mins bet with Mr Hils.

Extremely well organised. Rock up on the tube, stick your number on, chip on shoe. Drop bag off, get into allocated wave, run, finish, timing chip removed, goody bag, pickup your bag. Big signs, regular annoucements and good marshalls directing you on where to go, no clueless wandering.

Running with loads of other people is so different from running by yourself. It’s a lot more stop/start, quite a bit of weaving, trying not to run into the person in front and looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re not cutting people up. Will need to incorporate more pace changes into training.

Free lucozade sport everywhere, grabbed a few bottles n was busting for a pee just before the start. But forgot about it once we got running. The sheer number of people made going to the toilet a problem if you were a girl.

Forgot my watch which was a schoolboy error! Duh! Didn’t remember til I’d got on the tube at London Bridge. Was hard pacing myself, but it worked out ok, although the time was slower than I’d hoped. Ran a negative split, the 2nd half was about 30 secs faster than 1st half. My results here, and was the 2nd fastest Wong in the race, haha.

The first 5k was ok, felt comfortable-ish. 6.5 to 9 was a bit of a struggle. Was struggling along the embankment thinking this was hard work and wondering when that 8km marker will show it’s face. Kept plodding along n the next marker I see was the 9km which was a bonus.

Tried to go a bit faster for the last km. Rounded the corner onto the mall, 400m to the finish, tried to kick, nearly spewed! Didn’t want to vomit in front of the crowds so slowed down, composed myself, n kicked for the last 250. Was a bit surprised by how much I’d had left in my legs despite nearly spewing, so I probably could have gone a bit faster, but wouldn’t have got near the 48mins target.

The route is pretty flat with only a few inclines going up to the city. To be honest I didn’t take in much of the surroundings as was concetrating on putting one foot in front of the other. I did look up to see Big Ben though around the 9km mark.

Running with the crowd was quite an odd experience. All the shouting n noise they make does help when you’re struggling. And when there is a crowd watching you, it does make you less inclined to give in to the pain n walk. There were some taiko type drummers along the embankment and in the city which were very loud  and helped your rhythm.

£10 lighter, but got my medal and baby blue t-shirt from Bupa and had a lot of fun. Looking for my next race to try n beat my time and break the 48 min barrier!