Crewkerne 10k: race report

by Ben

TL:DR summary: Not my best day.

I ran the Crewkerne 10k previously in both 2015 and 2017. A truly undulating road course that departs Crewkerne and visits the villages of Merriott and Hinton St George before finishing back in Crewkerne (a bit further in than the start!) In 2015, I found the hills really tough, while in 2017, I was far more at ease, but a bit off the pace still after the birth of our second child.

This year, I looked on this as one of my favourite routes. The hills were rolling, but no individual hill is too bad, and I felt that it played to my strengths: achievable climbs and fun descents. On the day though, nothing really felt right. I woke up feeling overtired (a theme all week – possibly my 19.3 mile, 3,500 ft long run last Sunday was still working its way out of my system). I got to Crewkerne and found the warm-up tough. It was pretty warm – not so crazy hot as the London Marathoners had it this year, but plenty hot enough. According to Garmin, it was 13.9°C in both 2015 and 2017, while this year it reckoned 20°C.

Now that I’ve got all my excuses lined up early, let’s cut to the crux of the matter. I started too fast. A fair bit too fast. I had looked at my splits from last year, reckoning that I was in similar shape (not thinking about the heat), and had seen that the first couple of miles came in just under seven-minute miles. Forgetting that the fact that the first mile has a climb followed by a long descent would mean that my time would improve throughout that mile, I pushed myself too hard around half a mile in to up my pace. My attempt to aim for a 6:55 mile resulted in a 6:40 mile. Sigh.

Unfortunately, this error was compounded by the fact that I didn’t even notice I’d done it. By the time I glanced down at my watch after passing the mile, it was showing a time in the early seven minutes, and I assumed I’d clocked through at about what I’d expected. A 6:40 pace might not sound too extreme, but Strava made it a 6:10 grade-adjusted pace, which definitely wasn’t going to be sustainable. My second mile of 6:57 was much closer to what I should have been running, but felt awful, as runners seemed to stream past me.

I set four Strava segment PRs during this race, despite being slower than last year. Three of them were within the first four kilometres of the race. I was a little surprised to find that one of these segment records came during the climb through Merriott. On reflection I guess it makes sense – both times previously, I’d felt like I was cruising this section, whereas this year it felt like a slog. I’d assumed it was because I was struggling, but in fact, it looks like it was because I was going too fast and pushing myself too hard.

By mile four, my pace was definitely taking a downturn though. I was really suffering from the heat. I’d trialled running with a cap to protect against the sun, and although it was working well from that point of view, it was just a normal cap, rather than a running one, and it was too thick. I eventually (around mile 5) gave up and took it off, but the damage was done by then. Matt Powell from Burnham (@no1mattpowell) was chasing me down, and although I managed to keep him behind for a time, I crashed on the final hill climb and had to walk, letting him through. Looking now, he had a brilliant finish anyway, so it seems unlikely I’d managed to stick with him even if I hadn’t been forced to walk.

Great honeymoon souvenir. Sub-standard running cap.

Somehow, I managed to set a PR on the “One Last Push” segment near the end of the race, but it didn’t really reflect how I was doing at that stage. I managed to sneak in sub-45, timed as 44:44 by my Garmin, 40 seconds slower than last year.

Next up, next weekend, is the Piddle Wood Plod 10k.