Transcription
Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Today is our street 10k, which means it's race day. [Music] So, today is all about breaking 45 in the 10k. So, in order to try and get off to a good start to that, I'm going to fuel for that race with a couple of pieces of toast and some honey. I'm going to take along a banana, and I'll have that probably 10 minutes before. Even though it's a short race, I'm going to take along a gel because part of me is thinking that if I can consume a gel halfway through that race, that might give me a little bit of a boost for the back end of that race. And look, at the end of the day, it's probably not going to do any harm to do that. So, I'm going to eat this and then start getting everything ready to head off for the race. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]
I've got about an hour till the race starts. So, the plan is to get some warm-up in, some dynamic stretching going on, and a decent warm-up jog. That should take me up until the race. I haven't really talked much about the strategy for today's race, but what I do know is that I need to hit a 4.3 minutes per kilometer in order to break 45. I don't know too much about the course. I haven't looked into too much about what the elevation of the course is. So, the strategy for today is to go out at that pace and try and maintain that pace for as long as possible. Now, if I do hit a decent hill, then I think there's enough opportunity in order to ease off very slightly and then to increase my pace in order to make up anything that I do lose. The goal is to break 45. Now, obviously, anything below that is a bonus. Um, maybe I don't break 45. We just don't know at this point. But if I get a decent warm-up in, and try and maintain that strategy. So, I'm going to go and get some stretching in, get the warm-up jog in, and then get to the start line. Now, I'm going to try and take you along with me. I'm not sure how much filming I'll be able to do because I'm going to be running really fast. Um, but I'll try and film as much as I can at the times that I think I'm able to do that. So, yeah, let's go. [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, [Music]
I've just set off on my warm-up jog and all my confidence has completely fell away. My legs feel really heavy and I'm wondering whether I've got this sub 45 in me. But I'm hoping that I have a little jog for a K or two, everything will ease up and my confidence will come back. But yeah, I suppose always have a little wobble here and there. And I'd rather have my wobble with trying to get it back on track than when I actually get to the start line and it happens there. So yeah, let's get this warm-up job done. Let's see where we are then. Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music]
Okay, so that's 2K in. Legs are starting to ease up there. I think I'm going to slow it down a bit. Keep those legs warm. Still got a little while until the race. Probably started warming up too early, but I'm going to try and keep loose now. Feeling much more confident after that little shake out. Getting the blood flowing. So, I'll finish this up, have a drink, and keep warm and get ready for the race. [Music] Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. [Music]
Okay guys, have a great day. 10 seconds to go. We lost the stream. There'll be a 5-second count now. 5 4 3 2 [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music]
Race done. Got my medal. It's quite a good medal actually. So that's it. That's the Austri 10k complete. And did I PB? Well, I did. And I did it in a time of 44:24. So I broke 45 minutes, which I'm absolutely ecstatic about. There wasn't a a pacer for 45 minutes. So I was going by my watch, um, which again I find really difficult because, I mean, firstly, my watch isn't that great. So I look down and sometimes it's it's up and down with what pace I'm actually doing. Um, my heart rate was really high through the whole thing, but I think that was just adrenaline. Um, and knowing it was race day. All in all, really happy.
So, it's later in the same day, and you join me in my hotel room. So, I've traveled down to London in between finishing that race and recording this video. I've traveled down to London for work again. Uh, so expect some videos about how I'm going to stay fit and healthy whilst I'm away for work for 3 days. But what I thought I'd do is just start summarizing the series because this was a mini-series on whether I could break 45 minutes with just five weeks prep. So that was building on the back of a sub 48 that I'd managed to run a few weeks prior to starting the series. So it wasn't off the back of nothing, but I only had five weeks to prep to try and break 45. And I did. And I think it's worth talking about how I did that.
When I've looked at my splits for the race, I pretty much hit that 4:30 that I was after on every single kilometer. There was a couple that was slightly slower, but there were some quite decent hills in the race. Uh, but then I did make up the time with some of the declines as well. I did consume the gel that I took with me, and I did that at kilometer 6. Don't know whether it made a massive difference. Uh, I guess I would have to run it again without it on exactly the same circumstances with exactly the same food to see. But either way, psychologically, I felt that I had taken on some fuel. And I did manage the last 200m to actually sprint to the finish, which I felt it was a sprint. Probably if anyone would have recorded that, it probably looked like a very fast crawl, but for me it felt like a sprint. So whether it gave me that extra energy, don't know, but psychologically it certainly gave me a boost to feel like I could push it, and that meant that I finished the race sub 45, and actually my chip time came in at 44:19. So, yeah, did it.
Now, I guess that begs the question, how did I achieve that? And there's no great secret. There's many videos out there of people who know far more than me about this subject who can explain the different ways to achieve running whatever goal you're after. But my training was certainly focused around tempo work. I spent Monday evenings somewhere flat and trying to race at a decent tempo. Uh, I did record a video on that. Uh, that's within this series. And that shows you what I was actually doing with those tempos. And that was mixed every week. Uh, and and that seemed to be quite effective. It was a hard workout, but quite effective. I did interval training. I did some interval training on the treadmill, trying to push that pace as hard as I can with with lots of rest in between. Again, I felt that that sort of certainly with my sort of fast-twitch muscles felt that that was helping me. Um, and then obviously I put in some long runs.
Now, the last time that I run a 10k, I ended up with an injury after that, and it was my calf injuries, and I think it was an overuse injury because I think the mileage that I'd done before that was too high and I did it too quickly. So, this time I thought I would mix it up a bit with adding in bike work. So I ended up doing a lot of cycling and instead of doing actual long runs, I was doing long cycles. I was doing an hour and a half, 2 hours either outdoor cycling or as the weather's starting to get a bit colder and darker, Uh, that's been indoor training. Again, there's a video on that in this series. And there was a question whether that would actually be effective. And I think what I found was that it was very effective. And I think for anybody who's getting a little bit older, um, or someone who's had an injury and can't quite hit that mileage as fast as they want to, I think cycling is a great way to build up that cardio endurance. And I felt that it really helped me substantially for that.
Now, I think the downside to it is that my legs perhaps weren't as conditioned to the endurance to the length of a 10k that I would have liked. And I certainly was starting to feel it towards the back end of that race, and I am feeling it this evening. But my cardio capacity, my aerobic capacity, there was absolutely no problem with that through the whole race. And in fact, uh, I was smiling towards the end. I was thanking uh people on the side, but I felt that my legs were perhaps letting me down out of everything in that race. So, for the next one, if I if I try and break my personal best at getting in a 10k, I'll have to have a think about how I can create that endurance in my legs, but without risking injury or certainly uh getting an injury. Think about how I can put all that together for a potential PB in the future.
The only other thing I will mention is that I've still been playing football throughout all of this. And again, the cardio element of football has I think helped. I think there's a it's a different type of fitness, but I certainly think that some of that change of speed that I needed going up the hills um and certainly to the end with the what I call a sprint. I think that just I think that was helpful in the whole thing. So overall, I feel that the last five weeks have been a success. There are things that I I would do different. I would definitely try and increase more mileage in the running. I would definitely take the recovery more seriously. I don't think I think there was certain times throughout those weeks where I ended up going from one workout to the next and I wasn't completely paying attention with the recovery. So, I have suffered from heavy legs at times, but overall very pleased with where I'm at.
So, just before you swipe off from this video and go and check out another one, I would love it if you could hit that like button, subscribe, drop me a comment. What your What has your 10K been like? What's your P current PB of 10K? Are you planning on trying to break that PB? Be very interested to know what people out there are trying to do and whether whether you've got a particular way that you train for a 10K. But that's it for the series. That's the end of breaking 45. I'm toying with the idea of I'll be 43 next year. So, could I do a breaking 43 at 43? I don't know. But the next priority and certainly focus is Hyrox. Hyrox Birmingham is coming up in a couple of weeks. So, I'm switching as of now into what can I do to try and uh focus on Hyrox and that will be discussed at more depth in the next video. That's it. So, thanks for watching. I'll see you on the next one.