My Cabbage Patch 10 - The Race Where I Tackled My Running Demons (and Beat Them)

The Cabbage Patch 10 mile race is a race I had been wanting to run for years. But I wasn’t on the mailing list so inevitably woke up too late every year to sign up in time. It is so popular that it sells out every year. This year, it only took 6 weeks. So I was glad to get a spot.

10 miles is not something overly common as a race distance, and I have mainly focused on half-marathons in the past few years (with the exception of my ultra this year). That also means I don’t have a big track record in that distance, which in some way you would think takes some of the pressure away.

However, I am currently training to achieve a Boston-qualifying time at next year’s Edinburgh marathon (there, I’ve said it - glups!), and I have started training towards that goal with my Wimbledon Windmilers’ Coach Trevor De Silva. And Trevor made it clear the Cabbage Patch 10 would be an early test for our grand plan. I embraced the challenge when he said it. What I didn’t know, is the time he had in mind.

The Lead Up to the Race

After the Campus Run Academy camp, my legs felt heavy for a good few days (they had worked hard!). Trevor’s plan called for an 11k run on Tuesday including speed work and 45min run on Thursday. I normally follow the plan religiously, but as I had overdone it over the weekend, I deviated from it and only did an 11k run on Tuesday with no speed work that week, as I wanted to ensure I had fresh legs for the race.

One of my colleagues who was running the Cabbage Patch 10 that weekend also asked me whether I wanted to meet up at the start and run with him and another colleague. He was aiming to run a 5min/k pace. I responded yes to meet up at the start but I really wasn’t sure I would be able to keep up.

Then on Tuesday night, coach Trevor e-mailed me to give me my race place. He said to aim for 1:17, equivalent to a 4:50min/k. 4:50min/k? I immediately realised that the only time I had ever been able to run that pace was over a 5k race (actually I just found out at the time of writing this blog post that I had done it once over a 10k race 4 years ago, something my brain had clearly discarded as a once-off/never-to-be-achieved again kind of thing). This one was 10 MILES!!! There was absolutely no way I could sustain that pace over 10 miles. My first reaction was sheer panic and then shortly after I replied to Trevor, saying I thought it was frankly unrealistic as I had never run that pace over 10k (even before kids), let alone 10 miles. So he kindly revised the estimate down slightly to a pace of 5min/k, still trying to push me as much as possible.

Fighting My Race Demons

I spent the remainder of the week thinking about the race, and started to wonder what time I could realistically achieve. I thought 1:20 may be possible. If I could race with my colleagues then I would have pacers and I started to think maybe it was possible to stick to that pace, although I still wasn’t convinced.

As the days passed and the race approached, I starting to feel more and more nervous. I always suffer from race nerves, but I never really went to a race with a very specific time in mind. Also I tend to be a bit conservative with estimated race times, so I don’t get disappointed by setting myself too challenging a target.

I have intentionally slowed down my easy runs recently as I had always run them too fast. Also, my ultra generally slowed me down. That meant I had no real idea of how fast I could run. My recent half-marathon time was just over 1:50, which was ok, but still only a 5:14min/k. A 10 mile race is only 5k shorter, and to go from 5:14min/k to 4:50min/k felt like a real stretch. It’s not like I had run my half at leisurely pace.

But then a few days before the race, I remembered specific passages from the last book I read by Deena Kastor, ‘Let Your Mind Run’. If Deena had not challenged the little voice in her head that doubted her, she would probably never have reached her running potential. Also I remember the talk from Mark Rohan on mental toughness at The Campus’ camp, and the wise words from Susie, Lily and Shaun. So I started to question what was the real hurdle to me running a 4:50min/k 10 mile. Was it physical? Probably not. If my coach had set me that time, it’s probably because he thought that was possible. I had also managed a quick leg turnaround during the speed workout at last week’s running camp. So, why not? Then the realisation came that what was stopping me was purely lack of confidence in my abilities. I always find it very difficult mentally to push myself at the start of a long race. I can only think of the double digit number of kilometers that’s left ahead of me. If I run fast now, what will be left at the end? Most likely nothing, and I may even have to stop and walk. But is that the reality? Probably not. It’s all psychological. I know that endurance sport is a lot about endurance training, but I also know it is even more so about mental toughness: your mind will give up long before your body does. And that’s why it’s important for performance to train that mind of ours to be more resilient.

So I decided that I would try my utter best at that race, push my body as far as it let me. Although I now like running GPS-free, I wanted to know what pace I was racing so set up my watch to give me my 5k splits. I also set up my watch to give me an alert if my heart rate was exceeding 190bpm. Usually my heart rate never exceeds about 183bpm during hard workouts but I wanted to make sure that if I was going to experiment with my body during the race, I would not be taking it into the danger zone. If I managed to stay below that limit then I knew my body could handle whatever pace I was at.

Race Day

I arrived early on race day, pretty nervous and not too pleased with the weather (pouring) but knowing I had some friends and colleagues running it too so at least there would be some friendly faces to take my mind off the race pressure. My Campus Run friend Kelly was there, although our friend Michelle had had to pull out due to shin splints, which was so disappointing (for us as much as for her). Our chit chat definitely helped me to relax a bit (thanks, Kelly!!). A little bit later she left to walk to the start but Trevor had recommended I did a warm up run before the start. Thankfully fellow Windmilers Kate spotted me and we did the warm up together. Kate was aiming for around 1:12-1:13, so that did a little bit to appease my nerves as at least I knew that even if I lost her during the race I didn’t have to worry that I was running too slow!

Rather excited at the start, if a little bit lost in the mass!

The race started and I leapt off the starting line, determined to see what I could do. Because of my warm-up run my muscles were fully activated and my first kilometer split was 4:54, which I just needed to maintain for the remaining… 15k. Every time the usual thoughts crept into my mind (“15k is a LOT of kilometers”, “you can’t possibly maintain that pace for that long”, “look, everyone is now overtaking you”, “you started way too fast”), I simply brushed them off and focussed on the positives. The rain had stopped, there was a light refreshing breeze, the terrain was flat, I had run parts of the route before during various training sessions, my body felt strong and my breathing was under control). I stuck to the fuelling strategy suggested by Trevor, and that gave me additional confidence as I had done everything I could. Due to user error I couldn’t monitor my splits as my watch didn’t beep so I only saw two splits, which were both under 5min. But looking at the elapsed time, things were looking good. Every time I felt my legs were slowing down I would just drive with my arms and focus on my running technique (thanks Chi Running).

The Outcome

4k from the finish I knew I was within the 1:20 time I would have been happy with, but as the finish was getting nearer I didn’t want to take my foot off the gas so I kept pushing. I finished in a time of 1:16:30, so below the time Trevor had set me. Needless to say I was totally over the moon and puzzled at the same time. So this is what can happen when you shush that little voice in your head and just go for it! I recovered my breath very quickly, which confirmed my body was definitely capable to running that pace, which was a complete revelation. Could I have pushed further? Possibly yes, but then it had already been such a massive leap that I was more than happy with what I had achieved. Maybe next time I would be able to beat that time.

A PB!

I bumped into my colleagues at the finish and had a massive grin on my face when they asked me how I had done. Most of the time, my response is just ‘ok’. This time, it was a ‘great, very happy with my time!’.

I then bumped again into Kelly and we had our picture taken so we could send it to our Campus friends. We had done it! :-)

Two happy and relieved runners…

So here is the take-away: believe in your training and your abilities, and, as Trevor says, “You may surprise yourself!”.

Happy running! :-)