Race review: BHF Regent's Park 10K

Last Saturday Robert and I joined the British Heart Foundation in the Regent's Park 10K run.

After a full week of rain, the weather had mercy on us and the rain kept away for race day. However, the thermostat still only showed a chilly 4 degrees Celsius.

Robert and I arrived at the inner circle of Regent's Park in good time before the race to pick up our timing chips and complementary BHF T-shirts. When we arrived we were surprised to find a long queue in front of the small registration tent. We were told that the timing chips had just arrived and there was a delay in handing them out to the large number of registered runners. After a long back and forth, the organizers decided to hand out random numbers to runners to speed up the process. Consequently, my runner's pseudonym for that day was 'Paul Hilliman' with race number 60809. Once I had my chip and T-shirt, I was slightly worried to see that race organisers had just started to pin down the race track 15mins before race begin. For such a large and popular charity I expected to see better race organisation than that. After all, this run is a hot spot in the annual runner's calendar and attracts a lot of local runners.

However, all frustration was forgotten once we actually got going. Wave two included a fairly large mob of runners, so it took me some time to be able to set into my own race pace.

The race started parallel to the Broadwalk going North to Primrose Hill, followed by a left turn into The Regent's Park Hub and back along the Boating Lake to the starting point on the Broadwalk. The run was set out on pathways but also across water-drenched and muddy grass fields - my Brooks PureDrift shoes definitely needed a good clean after that run! For a 10K, runners had to complete two laps.

I completed my first lap confidently with an overall time of 00:32:15 and an average pace of 7mins/km. After passing the start line for the first lap, I sped up to an unbelievable 06:17 mins/km. Painstakingly, this showed revenge at the last two kilometres where I had to force my legs not to stop and drag myself up the hill to cross the finish line at PB of 01:06:26.
Two friends of mine, Berta and Laura, where waiting for me at the finish line, which sparked a sprint finish. Robert finished again 10 mins before me with an overall time of 0:55:29.

My verdict and overall race score: 3/5
Overall it was a good and flat run, suitable for any type of runner. The organisation was disappointing though. The running route could have been set out better and cut off from pedestrians. With a bit of better preparation and nicer weather, this could have been a worthy spring run.