Felt fine for the first 5km was running with someone from my gym. I felt like I could have even started a little faster. At 5.5km I developed a stitch. I tried to carry on running but the pain just got worse and I started to slow down. At 6km, luckily the first drink station, I had to stop altogether. Took a bit of a rest and drank some water.
Still felt uncomfortable until 7km where I was able to pick up the speed again until the finish. 7-9km was off road. Strange feeling going from the concrete to the path but many years of cross-country helped me here and I over took lots of people over this section. Although could also be that the stitch had gone.

Only my 3rd ever road race and a massive 7min faster than my previous 10km road race so very pleased. I think I started to slow and lost a bit of time with the stitch. The guy I was running with for 1st 5km finish 1:30 ahead of me in the end. So I’m quite confident about going even faster next time.

The winner did it in 31min. Are these people human!!!