The Pride Run 10km race

Saturday morning saw me jumping on an early train into London, and heading to Victoria Park for the Pride 10km race, organised by London Frontrunners who are a London club for gay & lesbian runners.  The race, last year, had got fantastic reviews on the Runners World site, and I was excited to see what all the fuss was about - I wondered if it would be a bit of an extension of the Gay Pride festival....

My first impression of the event was that it all seemed really well organised - the most important thing for a race as that can really make or break the experience - and that Victoria Park is actually a surprisingly nice location for a run.  I'd been a bit nervous about running laps, as that has bored me in the past, but it worked out absolutely fine, especially as there was lots to look at with so many other people using the park.  It was blazing sunshine on Saturday morning too, which is always a concern, but there was so much tree cover, it was shady with dappled sunlight falling on the paths and pretty nice for a race.  So, I enjoyed it.  There was someone running with a rainbow flag, a few very camp guys running in fabulous kit, lots of people had rainbow ribbons and bands and the start/finish arches were made of rainbow balloons but there was nothing too outrageous: the whole atmosphere was just really friendly. 

I found myself racing other people again (although they were all entirely oblivious to me I'm sure) but enjoyed getting someone in my sights, and overtaking them, particularly as I really made an effort to beat a whole group in the last half a mile.  I didn't quite manage to beat all of them though...a guy in his 60s managed to keep ahead of me - it's always the way! lol

I was very pleased with my time on the run - finished in 55:49 which was a PB for me in a 10km, and averaged out at 9:00 min/mile.  Unfortunately though, when I got home and checked out my Garmin, I ran every mile faster than the last so it seems I'm really not pushing myself as much as I should do...if I'd ran the whole race at the same pace as my last mile (8:41) I'd have finished in 52:55!  I must start working harder....

Because of my "episode" on Sunday night, and subsequently taking Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday as rest days, I ran Thursday and Friday so didn't get a day off before the race.  I'm not sure if that made a big difference to the time I could have achieved, but either way it was a PB run, on a great course with an unusual medal (always important!) a decent goodie bag (a real rarity!) and I'll probably be back next year :)