On Sunday, I ran Leeds Abbey Dash.

I didn’t sleep well at all. I had dreams that I had been to a nightclub the night before the race and would be hungover. I must have had about 4 hours sleep – when my alarm went off, I thought I was going to cry.

I need to make a mental note that I can still run if I feel tired – because I was convinced it was the tiredest I’ve felt and I wouldn’t be able to run at all. It’s funny how you forget things like tiredness so quickly, but in the moment it feels so intense and dramatic.

Due to the roads being closed, my friend couldn’t get to my house. We decided to meet each other there. Then I struggled to get a taxi! One said they wouldn’t come and pick me up because of the race. Doom.

After finally getting there, I found my friend and we stood waiting for the start. As there are so many runners at Leeds Abbey Dash (over 12,000), it starts in waves. We were in the last wave so didn’t cross the finish line until there was 15 minutes on the clock.

I started off steady as I usually really struggle with the first couple km, it was okay though – I tried to push a bit around the second km.

I didn’t see the marker for 3km, so was surprised to see the 4km mark. Good, almost half way there. Although I knew that meant the incline was right in front of me!

I kept it steady and just after 5km, there was water handed out in plastic cups. I drank some but most of it went over my face and t shirt as I didn’t want to stop running.

I missed the 6km marker again – I have no idea how! So I was so happy when I saw the 7km.

I started to really feel it in my legs when I got to 8km. I felt fine breath wise, I wasn’t out of breath at all, but my legs were another story. They started to feel really heavy and I wanted to push harder, but I was afraid that I’d get too out of breath and have to stop.

I’m really not good at pushing my limits and need to be a bit braver at pushing myself harder. I always go for the safer options, which is to run at a comfortable pace.

The 9km sign was in view and I knew there was another incline coming. This is the worst thing about Leeds races, on the last km there’s an incline up a slip road and although it’s not massive, when you’re already exhausted it’s just not what you want when you’re on mile 6.

After what felt like hours, I finally saw the finish line and passed it! I got my t-shirt and waited for my friend.

I didn’t get a text message with my time, I thought that I had done better than Leeds 10k but not as good as Bradford 10k.

When I got home, I checked my results online and then checked the results from my previous 10ks and found that I had PBed!

• Bradford 10k 01:14:48 (16th March 2014)
• Leeds 10k 01:14:35 (20th July 2014)
• Leeds Dash 01:14:01 (16th November 2014)

For some reason, I thought I ran Leeds 10k in about 1 hour 18, but actually ran it faster than my previous one. I know it’s not massive increases in speed, but I’ll take anything I can get at this point in time!

I’ll be running the Bradford 10k again next March and would love to be around the 01:10:00 mark!

Here’s the race data from my Garmin 🙂