Beating my 10km time at the Boutique Run in Battersea Park

Last night I ticked another item of my list and I'm quite proud of myself on this one.  I don't know quite how hot it was yesterday evening but I reckon between about 27 and 30 degrees. And in that heat, I ran 10km in a personal-best time of 1 hour 4 minutes and 11 seconds (my previous time was 1 hour 5 minutes something).

I was running at the Boutique Run - 'a new running and lifestyle event exclusively for women' in Battersea Park. The premise behind the run was that after challenging yourself to a run you could enjoy free champagne, free showers, and free pampering while dancing to cheesy music and generally having a good night out.  It sounded like a great idea so I signed up with four of my friends - Annabelle and Mihaela to run the 5km and myself, Kate and Ros to run the 10km.

Before the race, feeling a bit nervous

We were all quite nervous as we approached Battersea Park smothered in sun cream and bug spray.  I have never really run in the evening before, having done all my training in the early mornings and I struggle with getting a stitch sometimes and my knees can be a bit ropey.

I've done two 10km races before but this was by far the hardest physically and psyhcologically.  They kept reminding us to stay hydrated and were giving out water around the race which was good but I think I was still pretty dehydrated by the end.  The first 5km lap was actually harder than the second and I found it psychologically quite difficult to see a load of people running to the 5km finish line when I knew I still had half the race to go.  My legs felt heavier than they did when I trained, and I was gasping with thirst and feeling slightly queasy all the way round.

My friend Ros was in my sightline but slightly ahead of me throughout the race but around the 9km line I caught her up. She had a stopwatch on so we knew that we had passed 9km around 59 minutes and still had a chance of me beating my time.  Running that last kilometre together really helped us both, we pulled a bit of a sprint out of the bag for the last 100metres or so and we crossed the finish line together at 1.04.11.

As soon as I finished running my whole body felt really weird, like every muscle was contracting and after just sprinting quite fast, I suddenly couldn't move very fast at all, but I felt triumphant!  Despite the heat, I had beaten my time, it was a great feeling.

Unfortunately we weren't able to make much use of the facilities as we queued for too long for a shower (which we eventually gave up on) and the pampering sessions were all booked up but nevertheless we had a nice time. 

With Annabelle and Mihaela afterwards who had better luck in getting a shower and a change and hence look much more elegant than sweaty me!

The Boutique Run was really well organised and a great idea for an event, I'll definitely be trying for it again next year, and hopefully we'll time it better for the pampering.

I didn't feel great in the evening as I think I was pretty dehydrated despite all the water and my body temperature was a bit all over the place, so I'm taking it easy today but I still feel triumphant!

Well done to Kate (who got a fantastic 59 minutes and 55 seconds time), Ros (who kept me going the final lap) and to Mihaela and Annabelle (who both got great 5km times around 30 minutes and successfully completed their first ever races). I'm taking a week off running now and then starting to train slowly for the Royal Parks half marathon in October. Hopefully it'll be cooler then!