The Wrong Turn - Double Trouble 10K Pairs Race

The race is a 10KM (6.2 mile as this will be written in miles) with a twist, hosted by Blip Events (a brilliant local, community focused and friendly group). The rules state "You must run in pairs and the time will be taken of the last person in your pairs so no good speeding of and leaving your partner".

This sounded like fun, but who would run it with me?! My go to was Ben (my brother) but he'd been away with work overseas for 5 or 6 weeks and wasn't sure if he'd be either back or in a position to race. March 14th rolled around and entries closed in a couple of days so I sent him a link, "wanna do this?". "Yeah let's do it!...

...We going steady or?" I read the first line and was buzzing, I then saw the second line and shuddered. I know what that means. We'd ran solo races together a few times and he always pushed and supported me, but towards the end of those races I just couldn't keep up with him. This time round he knows I've been training, so I knew he'd be expecting a better performance and to be honest I was shitting my pants. I didn't want to disappoint him as he's my benchmark and idol in all things running. I was out on a 22 mile training run the day before the race and Ben came to meet me at about mile 16/17. We had a good old natter and catch up, but more importantly Ben got to take his new shoes for a little test run! My legs were feeling good but at about 20 miles my chest was really playing up. I've been struggling with this dodgy chesty flu thing for a week or two now and it was just impossible to breathe by the end of this run. Really not what I wanted before the race tomorrow.

Race day arrived, my legs were feeling good despite the 22 miler the day before but my chest was feeling tight and raspy. Regardless, up and at it! I headed over to pick Ben up at my parents house and we got on down there.

The route was roughly a 1.5 mile straight down the old railway line on some old battered tarmac into trails, then a little 0.5 mile out and back on a gravel track and then in and round some undulating fields, a forest-y area and back round to the track and a 1.5 mile push back.

We got to the start line, I told Ben we'd run at a 7:15/mile pace (4:30/KM) and see how we faired. Obviously the first stretch you get giddy and excited so we bolted past a good chunk of people who we'd clocked weren't going to be pushing anywhere near that pace and got up front with about 6 others. Mile 1 - 6:43/mile (4:10/KM)

As we passed mile 1 and got settled in, we were in a group of 8 or so and behind us was a pretty substantial gap of easily 30/45 seconds and growing. I kept telling Ben to wind it in as I really didn't want to push too hard at the beginning and leave myself with nothing in my chest, once I couldn't breathe I knew I couldn't push at all. We soon ended up getting into 2nd place comfortably, trailing by only about 10/15 seconds.

Mile 2 - 6:53/mile (4:17/KM)

From about half way into mile 3 is where it turned from gravel track onto sloppy mud and boggy grass. Ben took to sticking behind me slightly so he could follow my footing, his new road shoes weren't so good on this dreadful ground. This definitely took some wind out of our sails trying to maintain pace whilst battling the sticky ground, but we pushed on and maintained a good lead on those in 3rd place and was slowly creeping up on 1st place. Slipping and sliding through the trees we were following arrows on posts showing us the way, we then passed a marshal who shouted "TURN RIGHT AT THE FIELD". Just ahead of us the lads in 1st reached the kissing gate, turned right and continued on. We followed in pursuit only 5/10 seconds behind.

Mile 3 - 7:09/mile (4:26/KM)

"BILL"

"BIIIILLLLLLLLL"

I turned around seeing a mate of mine (and a fantastic runner, Andy, who had also ran this race multiple times) stood at the kissing gate shouting and waving his arms in the air. I then saw 3 lads (the pair who were in 4th and also Andy's partner) running the other way. They'd gone left at the gate. Disaster.

We turned around instantly, absolutely devastated. We both tutted, grunted and wondered how the fuck we'd managed that?! Surely both us and the other lads couldn't have misunderstood a simple instruction. Regardless we pushed on, feeling a bit deflated and the pace slowed a touch. We caught up to Andy and he asked us what happened. We explained the instructions we were given and he just shook his head and shared our pain. He then told us that the lads in 4th had told him to not shout us so they could get the lead. He followed that up with a less polite version of "try to beat them".

Mile 4 - 7:19/mile (4:33/KM)

Before we'd spoken to Andy, me and Ben had agreed that if the lads in 1st (the actual ones) were close to us and couldn't pass near the end we were going to forfeit our place and let them take it. It was only fair as they were slightly ahead of us before we both went the wrong way and this is a local community event, we're not at the Olympics. Hearing that those lads wanted others to keep quiet so they could win an event they had no chance of doing so just felt wrong. We looked behind and the lads in 1st (that's how we'll refer to them) were starting to fall behind. We headed out of the fields and mud and onto a bit of road so we picked up the pace again to try and claw back some distance between us and the ones leading. At this point my chest was starting to bother me.

Mile 5 - 6:55/mile (4:18/KM)

With over a mile or so to go we were closing on the leaders, they had a good 500m on us from our wrong turn and we had closed that down to about 150m at this point. We turned the corner and looked down the roughed up tarmac and gravel towards the direction of the finish line. We were met by a pretty strong headwind and at this point my chest was really starting to burn. Every breath I tried to take felt robbed by the wind as it pushed against us. Ben really wanted to push to catch them but I just could not go any quicker. The same thing as the day before, my legs felt great but every breath felt like someone was squeezing my windpipe with hands made of fire. I gave it what I could on the last stretch.

Mile 6 - 6:59/mile (4:20/KM)

In theory, we should've had just 0.2 miles to go but due to the incident we still had over double that to come. We soldiered on, continuing to gain ground on the pair leading but I wanted to finish strong. Pushing any harder I wouldn't have got over the finish line breathing.

Mile 6.5 - 6:53/mile (4:17/KM)

We kept going, pushing each other on and for the first time it didn't feel that I couldn't keep up. Despite the horrid pain in my chest I couldn't help but smile as the finish line got closer knowing that we'd battled and earned what was going to be my first ever podium finish. Honestly, I think we would've taken the win if it had not been for the wrong turn. I really do.

We crossed the line together with a hug and a smile. It was probably my favourite race to date.

MY FIRST EVERY RUNNING TROPHY!

I also somehow managed to get a new 10KM PB. Really making me think on fresh legs and no illness, the 40 minute 10KM is not that far away...