This year, the Bristol race was scheduled a few weeks later than usual due to the barriers/toilets all being used for the Olympics earlier in the month (my thought anyway). This meant that the weather was a bit cooler than in previous races which was a pleasant surprise after last months awful race. We'd had some prediction of rain, but that held off for the day and I set out with my friend Simon at 7.15am to park up the car close to the race start. We met up with plenty of the other Portishead runners which I've missed in all of my other races and then made our way to the start for a 9.30am start.
I'd decided before the race that I would try to go out at 6.45 per mile and hope that I could keep it going for as long as possible. Well, the first seven miles were on a flat 'there and back' section along the Bristol Portway and I kept pretty much to schedule with miles at 6.48, 6.43, 6.43, 6.45, 6.41, 6.44 and 6.41. I even managed a 10km time (approx by my watch) of 41m52. The next section was over the Cumberland basin and back into the city itself where we ran past the Queens Square, Castle Green and Cabot Circus. I managed even to keep the pace steady with the following five miles at 6.46,6.45, 6.45, 6.40 and 6.48.
The last mile and a bit seemed to last a long while right through the centre of Bristol and back to the start/ finish area at @Bristol. My thirteenth mile was at 6.39 but I ended up with 0.29 of a mile after that at a rate of 6.11. The main problem with trying to run at a constant pace by your GPS watch, is that in built up areas like the centre of Bristol, it all goes a bit wrong and the last few miles must have been a bit in error to give the extra 0.19 miles on the total distance. Luckily, with a pace of 6.45, it still meant that I managed to thrash my previous PB.
Really looking forward to running in Cologne next month!
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