Run > Race

Great Eastern Half. Had graded targets for this one: 1-51-ish (8.30mm average pace) - minimum acceptable without considering hanging up the running shoes!; 1-50 (8.25mm) - optimistically doable; 1-49.30 - blinder of a day, considering current state of fitness.

First mile was quite congested but still managed to hit target time for first split. Then settled into quite a comfortable patch up to c.10 miles (blip in mile 9 was because of a couple of congested turns where I had to put the brakes on). Suddenly felt tired c.10m (not sure if it was partly psychological) and had to dig in to avoid losing too much over the last 3 miles. Pleased that I didn't stop fighting when it started to hurt and pleasantly surprised by how comfortable it felt up to that point, even though it was pretty hot and I got a bit shivery at one point. Went through 5m in 41.30, which is barely slower than my attempt at the Thorney 5m less than 2 months ago and my time through 10k would have been well under my time at Littleport and is probably my best 10k since Thorney in March 2008.

So, overall delighted with this! Good marker (finally) for progress (hopefully) over the next few months.