Finally done a 10K at my own pace, Woo Hoo! Thanks everyone for your advice although it was not as easy in practice.

I had struggled to get to that allusive 10K goal running on my own at a pace I felt comfortable at. When running with members of our group that run that distance often, I seemed to be able to run at their pace and get there with relative ease. I could tell their pace was slightly slower than my own but have found it difficult to get my pace right without them.

All the advice I have been given was to slow down to get there, but that did not appear to be as easy as it sounds. When I made a conscious effort to slow down, I either ran a lot slower, or forgot half way through and reverted back to my normal pace. Running a lot slower seemed to tire me more it was getting that balance that seemed difficult.

A few suggested monitoring my heart rate and keep it within a limit. I looked into a second hand Garmin as my cheap eBay purchases (a watch and a chest strap) lasted about a week each. I limit myself to only paying up to 1/3 of the original purchase price of an item that is second hand and out of warranty and those I bid on went higher than that. Finally a friend lent me her old FitBit to try. It is not easy to monitor my HR while running but did give me a graph to examine after.

My plan was to first work out what my current pace HR was and what my slightly slower HR was. So, run one (5K) on my own at my normal pace. Run two, same route running with my pacer. As expected, on my faster pace my heart rate increased more rapidly to start with but then evened out (with a gradual increase) over the 5K. The slower pace run had a more gentle increase in heart rate until it reach just under my faster pace HR. However, as we went up the hill there was an obvious hump in my heart rate which peaked higher than my fast pace.

I was expecting to see a much bigger difference that I did. Overall, the slower pace averaged at only 2 BPM slower than my faster pace over the 5K but peaked higher. Although that had not helped much with controlling my running speed, I rather like the idea of a tracker watch and my hubby likes the idea of an easy to choose Christmas gift.

I also gave the metronome app a try and listening to slower paced music but I don't think my ears and feet are in tune as I actually ran a 5K quicker with slow music.

All through my efforts to slow down I had actually been increasing the distance I ran at my comfortable pace and finally got to the 10K without stopping today. Now the trick is to make sure I can do that every time.

Thanks to everyone for they comments and suggestions and although I don't think I have actually been able to control my pace very well it has sparked an interest in examining statistical information I got from the FitBit. Who thought running would turn me into a nerd???

[Beatlesforever Graduate10]

Congratulations! That's a great achievement 👏👏👏 I think we all struggle with pace at one point or another but we'll get there 🙂

[nowster Graduate10]

"Running a lot slower seemed to tire me more it was getting that balance that seemed difficult."

This is exactly my experience too.

[Lifluf Graduate10]

Congratulations! And now you have reached the 10k goal it looks like you have another challenge to master your pacing and distance.

Happy running 😊