Over the weekend, was my first race of 2018, where I was in the Cancer Research UK London Winter Run. It was my first race outside of South Yorkshire and on a potential flat PB course. The event is well organised and was in its fourth year as an event. With 20,500 people expected and a sold-out event, the race times were different depending on individuals time targets specified at registration. What this meant was that my allocated time was 10:18, for my estimated time, which was around 1 hour. I entered this race before I ran Percy Pud, so didn’t think I could get below the 1-hour barrier.
As the race was in London, we decided to have a weekend of family time, so we arrived in London on Friday evening, and do a bit of site seeing on Saturday. The girls decided that they wanted to visit the Imperial War Museum, as they were doing stuff on World War II in school. It was very interesting looking at all the history revolving around items from WWI and WWII. However, for me, the one that stood out was the scrunched up car that was left over from a suicide bombing from Iraq, as this would have been from something that at least I would have remembered in my lifetime on the news.
Moving on to the race day, I decided to go earlier than my allocated time, to see if I can set off early, but the queue to the start was so long, that it took me approx. 30mins to get to the start line, which in the end got me to the start line at approx 10:05. I’ll remember for next year to take extra time, so that I can get off early, or on time.
I was aiming for a slightly quicker race compared to Percy Pud, but the race started very slow due to the number of people there, and also people being considerably slower than anticipated. This is why, next time if I do this race, I will try to go a lot earlier, so that I don’t have to weave in and out, and actually, go for a proper PB. This, however, made it very difficult to try to aim for a steady pace, having to weave in and out of people. The good though was that I came away with another PB, which I was very much thrilled with.
The race starts in Trafalgar Square, and goes through Strand, and then towards Holborn. past midway point, you will pass Bank of England, and then towards St Paul’s Cathedral with ringing bells as we went past. Then back on Newgate St, and getting towards Trafalgar Square, and towards the finish. We were greeted with many characters over the course, such as wolves, penguins, yetis, and polar bears. At the end of the race, there were polar bears giving hugs to all people that finished.
In the end, I achieved the 10K in a PB time of 52:44, eclipsing my Percy Pud time by 2 mins and 54 seconds
Strava Activity:
https://www.strava.com/activities/1390888394
Official Result Below:
https://resultsbase.net/results/2233247/embed
Full Results:
http://www.londonwinterrun.co.uk/london-winter-run/event-info/2018-results/