So I had a pretty awesome day today running the Birmingham 10k.

I went into it with an aim of 44 minutes but I was starting to feel sceptical. My previous 10k PB was 47 minutes but that was ages ago. My recent 5k times are 21:05-21:30 consistently so 44 seemed achievable.

But I’ve been sleeping approximately 5 hours a night all week, I’ve run every day (not well rested, but mental health comes first), and I have a sore throat that started last night and hasn’t improved so I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with something… and a few days ago the weather forecast was 18 degrees and 80% humidity. Yuck.

Anyway, I smashed it. Safely sub-44 and on a flatter course would have gone sub-42 easily. Pacing was OK. I took the inclines quite slowly whereas a lot of people around me didn’t, who I subsequently re-overtook on the flat. It rained so it felt a lot cooler, which was nice. I had horrible flashbacks to the freezing rain of last year’s Birmingham half marathon when we were standing around before we started, but it was fine once we got going. I finished in position 300-ish out of 7000-ish, so I’m pretty chuffed with that.

Strava logged a 5k PB of 20:01. So why am I struggling to go sub-21 on Parkrun?!

Naturally, I have now signed up to the half marathon in October.

Pretty sure I’m going to be full of cold this time tomorrow though. The sore throat has got worse and my nose is running.