On Monday I completed my 4th Bupa London 10,000. I think that it’s safe to say that my race didn’t go as well as I hoped that it would.

I was aiming for a sub-60 time, but ended up completing the event in a slightly frustrating 1 hour and 41 seconds. At least it wasn’t 1 hour and 1 second, that would have been really irritating.

I could make a load of excuses but there aren’t any. I set out at a far too ambitious pace and paid the price. One day I will get my pacing right. I walked when I didn’t really *need* to walk i.e. my laziness as a runner continues. At least I wasn’t as slow as I was last year. As an added bonus there aren’t any photos of me running – I managed to dodge the official race photographers – so I can save some money. Always a good thing for a skint PhD student.

I’ve just checked out the detailed graphical summary of the race. This illustrates just how terrible my run was. How many people was I overtaken by? Far, far too many people!

Hopefully I’ll be running in the Walsall Arboretum parkrun again in the morning. One day I want to earn my 50 parkrun t-shirt.

On Sunday, it’s my favourite event of the year; the Great Midlands Fun Run. The weather is predicted to be perfect for the spectators i.e. far too hot for the runners.

Watch this space for more not very flattering, beetroot photos!

Hopefully the PhD Runner is back!