On Sunday I ran my first ever competitive 10km road race – since getting into running about 6 years ago I’ve always been attracted to the longer distance events on trails, and can comfortably knock out a 45 minute 10km so I was keen to see how this would translate to an actual race. Since my main aim for this year is the Amsterdam Marathon in October, I’m keen to see how I can sharpen up my speed as well so I thought it would be a good little test.
The event ‘La Bombarde’ is run every April by a local running club, Club Athlétique Veynois which is a 25 minute drive down the valley in Haute Alpes. I got there an registered on the day – only €10 which included a good quality (if a little on the turquoise side) tech t-shirt.
The race headquarters where at the Plan d’eau in Veynes, a nice summer spot around a lake, with riding stables etc. Its in the main valley of the Grande Buech, so despite being in the Alps, there is quite a lot of ‘flat’ land and the race was to take place mostly on the back roads around the back of Veynes.
Photos
The starting pistol went off without much warning or ceremony, and I found myself bunched at the back a bit. The first few hundred metres were on narrow twisting roads which made it difficult to get closer to the front but it soon spaced out. The race was on open roads but on a Sunday morning there’s not much going on in Veynes, and the marshalls did a fantastic job of keeping everything organised on the well marked course. There were markers at every kilometre, and I set my watch to just show me my average pace, with the idea of keeping it consistently below 4:00min/km so that I could aim for as close to 40 minutes as possible.
Luckily I made it in 39:14, so very pleased with the result.
