Richmond Park - #london10mile

5 mile mark

Sunday 4th June 2017 saw the first ever closed road 10 mile race at Richmond Park. Richmond only closes its roads for sporting events three times a year and this #london10mile is the only time this year the roads were closed for a running event so I felt very privileged to be part of it. Now apart from the usual at any race event - delayed start, not enough loos - there was an emotional start as the whole race village paid tribute to those injured and killed at London Bridge and Borough Market the evening before. It was questionable whether the race was still going ahead after these atrocities, but in true London spirit the race organisers distributed an email at 7am confirming the race was on!

Now I have never been to Richmond Park, which was one of the reasons why I signed up. I couldn't think of a better way to see it then to run round a 10 mile course and boy it didn't disappoint. Such a beautiful park and a Royal one to boot. As soon as we entered I noticed Deer Do Do and realised that unlike its smaller Greenwich Park sister, the deer here are not enclosed and can basically gallop wherever they like. On my run I discovered some very interesting facts about the park; home to 650 wild deer, over 130,000 trees many of which are over 500 years old, 144 species of birds, 1,350 species of beetle living within the park, but one of the most interesting facts that we were furnished with whilst running round was that Henry VIII stood in Richmond Park in 1536 to watch a rocket fired from the Tower of London which signalled that Anne Boleyn had been executed for treason. Absolutely loved reading all these facts as I was hot footing it along it's hilly course. To improve my running technique I've decided to stop listening to any music. This way I can concentrate on my posture and more importantly listen to my footfall and make sure that I don't become to flat footed which has been my problem in the past and experienced some bad foot ligament injuries. So the distraction of reading facts was great. Maybe more race organisers should do this!

Now I mentioned hills. I have been doing hill training in preparation for this race, but I just felt we were constantly running on an incline with some pretty steep ones thrown in for good measure. It was a tough course and such a relief around mile 7 to finally run down a hill. It was fairly hot as well and I don't normally fare very well in the heat. To make sure I kept hydrated I ran with a water bottle and took small sips of water as and when I felt I needed it but also grabbed the cups of water being handed out at the water stations. I can't stand trying to drink out of a cup as basically you have to stop running. How can you run and drink from a cup at the same time? Sorry but that's impossible. And then you try and drink as quick as possible so you end up burping as you're running along. Not very ladylike but hey ho.

I can thoroughly recommend this course and if you're not comfortable with the full half marathon this is a nice step up from a 10k. More 10 mile races please! It was a great day in a beautiful park with fantastic spectator support cheering you on and fortunately for us runners no wild deer felt the need to join in. Now, injuries are a bit of a problem for me and I am trying to address this, but I was suffering from a bit of metatarsal injury whereby my physiotherapist actually thought it could be a stress fracture. I ignored her advice and decided to still run (stupid I know) and finished in under 90 minutes - 88 minutes and 19 secs to be precise and finished within the top 16% of women runners. I'm very pleased with that.

And my foot actually feels much better since the run!

My dog loved the park as well!

My medal