Mark Armstrong: Wymondham NOT New Year's Day race report

At the start of December I had a chat with my wife, Alison, about how I wanted to get a really decent block of speedwork in before the race. The plan was to get three weeks of quality training in before Christmas before tapering over the Christmas week. 

What is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?  

Unfortunately, they very much went awry. 

Like so many people I’ve spoken to over the past few weeks I just hadn’t felt myself. My resting heart rate was up and just when I thought I was getting better I would go down again.  

Any excess energy I did have was spent on finding batteries for my children’s new toys or feeding my daughter, Lara’s, tamagotchi if she was otherwise engaged… 

I wouldn’t consider myself ‘ill’ but by no means was I in a condition to be smashing out sessions to hone in on a sub 40-minute 10K. 

However, in the couple of days leading up to the Wymondham NOT New Year’s Day 10K, I started to feel normal again. I had some energy back and on the day of the race my fitness tracker gave me an excellent readiness score. 

There was hope and I had nothing to lose. I’ve had my fair share of near misses at the 10K distance over the past couple of years and the thought of going for it excited me. 

I like to take myself away from the general hubbub pre-race anxiety for a few minutes at least. I did a solo two-mile warm up thinking about trying to hit that four-minute kilometre pace early on in the race. 

Olympian, and all-round top bloke, Paul Evans, set us off on our way and the slightly narrow start ensured that I couldn’t go off like a rocket and ruin my race early on. 

I feel like you get the first kilometre for free in a 10K race… it takes me that long to settle down and find my pace and rhythm.  

The first couple of kilometres clocked in at around 4:02 pace - pretty ideal. However, the third kilometre is a tougher one at this event - a kilometre drag up Low Road. I tried to stay calm but when I lapped my watch and it said ‘4:17’ I did think I had left myself rather a lot to do from here. 

I settled again and let my legs come back to me after the hill. I gently tried to increase the pace and got caught in a race I wasn’t aware I was in with another runner, who cut me up on a couple of occasions. 

I managed to ease away in the end and started running with a Lonely Goat runner, James Jarmy. He revealed he had raced on New Year’s Eve and clocked 37 minutes for a 10K and was using today’s race as a bit of a tempo session. 

Mark Armstrong (609) during the Wymondham NOT New Year's Day 10K (Image: Wymondham AC)

‘I’m going to stick with you,’ I thought. Over the course of the next few kilometres I started clocking some sub-four minute kilometres, eating into the deficit I had built up in that third kilometre. 

Around the 7K mark, I realised I had a chance of going under 40 minutes. I quickened my pace again to see if I could cope and having James stick with me certainly helped. 

At 8K I knew I was on for what I consider a very decent time. I thought about dialling back the pace somewhat so I could put the hammer down in the last kilometre. 

However, once I realised the ninth kilometre had a very gentle descent I let my legs go a little and tried to stick with my new best friend, James. It was lucky I did as the last kilometre was a really tough one. 

I was starting to red line by this point and when I saw the hill up Lady’s Lane, doubt entered my head. 

The inner monologue said: ’You can’t afford to slow here, Mark’. I pushed again as hard as I could and the support along this point helped enormously. 

Someone shouted ‘you’re at the top now’ and, to my relief, they were right! A glance at my watch told me that a sub 40 was on if I could muster a sprint finish. 

Thankfully, my legs and lungs responded and I bundled my way through the finish line to clock 39:53. 

No sooner had I finished my daughter, Lara, who was helping my wife marshal, handed me a medal… and a lovely one it is too to mark Wymondham’s 40 staging of the event. 

I had achieved something I genuinely never thought I was capable of when I first started out on my running journey.  

I spent the rest of the day on cloud nine, annoying Alison by every now and again at home saying: ‘I ran a sub 40 today…’ 

It wasn’t to boast… I’m still struggling to get my head round it. 

But I’m a runner and within 24 hours I was thinking about what I can do next…  

A chat with Neil Featherby reminded me that I mustn’t forget what got me to this point. Plenty of easy marathon miles in training for the Chicago Marathon set up a big aerobic base to build from. 

So perhaps I should sign up for another marathon this spring… now there’s a thought. 

But that’s a subject for next week’s column. 

Cross Country Championships 

 
I’m really excited to watch the Norfolk Cross Country Championships on Sunday.  

It promises to be a great race. I’m sitting this one out from a participation point of view but the very best of luck to everyone that’s entered across all the age groups.