Ribble Valley 10k

I was persuaded by Justin P to wear my Christmas present new shoes for the race, he reckoned that I would be half a minute faster in them. I wasn't totally convinced as I'd never run in them & they were shiny & new, but I decided to go with them.

The start of the race was a bit manic with a downhill charge to the bridge, so I went off a bit quicker than might have been expected. After 2k I was averaging 3:44 per km which was faster than I should have done to run 38 minutes. I felt OK, so decided to stick with the pace I was running at. The course is quite undulating, so km times were varying between 3:31 & 3:55, but I felt surprisingly relaxed throughout the race.

There were quite a lot of Ilkley runners, but I found myself running with Andy W, we were keeping each other moving along quite well & probably faster than I'd have run on my own. Coming into the last 400m, Andy put in a sprint for the line & I felt fine, but not really able to compete in the sprint.

My finishing time of 37:19 was at least a minute faster than I was expecting & more than half a minute quicker than the Abbey Dash, so I was very pleased with that. Now less than 3 minutes improvement needed to get back to my 1983 PB! Considering that I was almost 3 minutes faster than at Ribble Valley last year, maybe it's not an impossible target after all.

There were lots of people at the finish very pleased with their performances, especially well done to Sarah J, Marc T, Justin P, Andy W & Jane B.