Dewsbury 10k PB – 2015 race report

Dewsbury 10k is a perfect PB race if you’re chasing speed, it’s got a large and fast field and it’s a straight and flat out and back with only a slight bit of elevation so I wanted to do well and knock a chunk off my last 10k (37:50) more than a year ago.

As a purely functional race – 3 miles along Batley Road and the delights of Dewsbury isn’t the prettiest – this was on my calendar last year but I missed it for some reason. Can’t remember why but this time I’ve been doing some tempo work and looking toward London Marathon I wanted to use this as a marker to see where I was speed and fitness wise.

My plan was to simply to tuck into a pack (my previous PB would have been well outside last years top 100) who were running at the pace I wanted to and run by how I felt without blowing up too spectacularly in the outward leg.

As I didn’t know how I’d fare flat out in a race I had two average mile paces in mind – 5:47/mile and 5:57/mile which would have bought me in at either a little under 36 minutes (very optimistic stretch goal) or just under 37 minutes (my more realistic goal) so anything between would be great.

I knew it was uphill on the way out, only about 30-50ft a mile but it was also into a headwind so I ran fairly steady around 5:50 pace but certainly slowed at 2.5 miles into the wind and slightly uphill to the turnaround but once around that, the decline is noticeable and significant as the wind moves to your back and you’re running downhill a little.

in the end I felt pretty comfortable running pretty much in the middle of my two goals and my chip time of 36:34 for 78th place was way above what I’d have been happy with so a cracking day out race wise.

I did feel like I died on my feet somewhat in the final mile and although the final mile and a bit were still 5:51 pace I had to work hard and really focus on keeping good form which definitely helped and is something I’ve been concentrating on during London Marathon training so happy to knock 1:16 off my previous PB and carry a bit more confidence into my training after last weeks tough long run too.