We came upon the idea to run a 10K in London when we were running the 10K in Prague and met two women from London who said we should run a 10K in London sometime. The Shoreditch 10K just happened to be in October so we signed up, got plane tickets, booked a hotel in Shoreditch right around the corner from the 3K marker, and made a weekend out of it with the whole day Saturday sight-seeing in London.
Sunday morning was rainy as we walked out of the hotel, but five minutes later there was no rain. Five minutes later it was raining again, then it stopped, then it began to pour for five minutes, then it stopped. About ten minutes before the race started, it began to completely downpour, but then stopped and didn't rain once during our 10K, which was very agreeable and made for perfectly cool but not really wet running conditions.
Hannah's race was very steady as always. She passed the 70-minute pacer at about 1K and we never saw them again. I followed her as she kept a constant below-7-minute pace throughout, me taking pictures and enjoying the flavor of this London borough which had a bit of a Prenzlauerberg or Friedrichshain feel, but with the typical British row houses. This was one of those hyped-up races with organized chanting, flag waving, clouds of smoke at the start, and official cheering sections, etc. but all fun and motivating, and well organized. The course was a fun zigzag through the streets of Shoreditch. I counted roughly 50 turns on the route map, which kept the race interesting, always turning right or left and running down a new street.
Hannah finished with her classic sprint coming in with a 01:07:47, her fastest time out of all of her eight 10Ks this year, over half of them between 01:07 - 01:09 and so very constant, even without any kind of pacing watch.
For next month, we have three possible races to choose from: (1) the November 4th Teltow run, which would be a close-to-home 14K actually, or (2) the November 11th Tegel 10K Crosslauf up in a forest north of Tegel Airport, or (3) on November 18th the Tropical Islands 10K which includes entrance into Tropical Islands afterward, certainly something that would be rewarding after a run through winter weather in the middle of Brandenburg.