Angels 10k

I recently ran Angels 10k with a couple of brilliant members of my running club. Organised by Angels Running Club – an all-female club based in Gloucester – Angels 10k is a road race on country lanes. The race starts at Woodpeckers Cricket Club in Ashleworth, which is kind of between Gloucester and Tewkesbury, without actually being very near either of them.

Angels 10k is part of the Gloucestershire AAA race series, which I’m taking part in this year. I started the series hoping for an age group medal. By the time I ran Angels, after a good run of races, my sights were firmly on gold for the series. Angels 10k is also the county championship 10k race. To be LV50 county champion would be pretty cool!

The email beforehand wasn’t that helpful. I didn’t know if the race was entirely on road, whether there was a water station or what the toilet situation was. This is all very important and useful information for runners. But the website did use the word ‘undulating’, which runners know is just a code word for ‘hilly’.

The journey there was slightly stressful as the Maps on my phone wasn’t working properly. It showed me the cricket club and me as a blue dot, but the sat nav wasn’t speaking directions to me. So I had to look very carefully at the map and aim for Apperley, which looked like it was on the way, and is somewhere I know how to get to. Remarkably, I only had to stop to check my route once and only took a very small wrong turn before the cricket club.

Parking was on the cricket field and there were three portable toilets, plus toilets inside the cricket club. Registration was quick and easy. We had reusable shoe tag chips. Timing was provided by Lush Timing. It might be weird to have a favourite timing company, but they are my favourite! They give you a little sticker with your time, position and category position as soon as you finish, and they publish the results online really quickly.

I did a quick warm-up ahead of the race briefing at 9:30. Then there was just time to go to the toilet before we were accompanied out onto the road for the start. We arrived 15 minutes early, so we were all starting to get cold. It was the first race since probably February where I’ve felt particularly cold.

At 10am, we were off! The route started with a downhill, which was very nice. I realised I was running at approximately my mile PB pace, so that definitely wasn’t sustainable and I slowed down a bit. I still ran the first mile in 6:54, which is a 5k PB pace.

The route was on open country lanes, but I saw literally one car in 10k. We were allowed bone conducting headphones, so I had a really good playlist of some of my favourite tracks. There were km markers, which seemed to come round pretty quickly. The route stayed largely flat until over 4k.

I’d been warned about the hill in the middle. It was described as ‘a walking one’. After several months of doing hilly races, I have zero qualms about walking up a hill if it’s needed. I knew this wasn’t a 10k PB course. I was running for position not time and I was certain there was nobody in my age category ahead of me.

For the first few kilometres, I was running alongside a lady from Severn AC. I’m very used to the sight of her back – I ran just behind her at Cranham Boundary Chase, Stroud Beer Race and I believe one other race in the series. I was thinking I didn’t even need to use my watch – I could just stay with her! (She told me afterwards she’d been thinking the same as me.) But I got ahead of her before the hill.

The hill was just as I’d been warned. At least half of the people in front of me were walking, so I walked. Near the top, the lady from Severn overtook me, then I almost instantly overtook her and I didn’t see her again. A man who overtook me told me he’d seen me at Pershore 10k a few weeks previously. Strangely, I don’t tend to notice/ recognise men until I’ve seen them a few times. Women seem more distinctive – probably because there’s less of them and I’m trying to race them!

At the top of the hill, we hit 5km and there was a very welcome water station. Water was in a plastic cup and I walked so I could drink it all. It tasted like absolute nectar.

After that, the route was up and down, but more down than up. I was enjoying it and making the most of running down the hills.

The marshals on the course were friendly and supportive and several of them used my name (because it’s on my vest), which I always appreciate.

I was surprised when I saw on my watch that I’d done 5.3 miles. I had less than a mile to go! I passed the 9k marker and picked up the pace a bit, although I still had to slow down again for another climb. There was a final climb to the finish line. We turned right off the road onto an alley, then from the alley onto the cricket ground. The finish line was as soon as we entered the cricket ground. I was grateful there was no soul destroying lap of the field before the end.

I crossed the line in 46:58, which I was very happy with for an ‘undulating’ race. I was first in my age category. My awesome friend was less than two minutes behind me and also won her age category. The third and final member of the team won his age category too!

Finishers were given a bottle of water and a choice between a medal or a little tin with wildflower seeds in it. I opted for the seeds as it was a bit different. There were presentations for both the race itself and for the county championships. We stood out in the drizzle as all the prizes were called out, then went inside to pick them up. It was very efficient. I got a little trophy and a bar of chocolate for winning my age category. For the county championships, there were bronze, silver and gold medals for each age category.

I was very pleased to come away as LV50 10k county champion! Until last year, I’d literally run three 10k races (Gloucester twice and Bourton once), I never would have imagined I could be a 10k county champion.