The British 10K London Run
Sunday 10th July 2011: Central London
Chris braves the crowds to bring you the lowdown on London’s 11th British 10K run
The British 10K is in its 11th year and boasts huge participation levels. Over 25,000 runners turned up to take part in the race, which offers a perfect route for tourists, and those enamoured with the sights of London. It starts at London’s Hyde Park Corner and takes in the most striking touristy parts of the capital, including Pall Mall, St Paul’s Cathedral, Houses Of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The route speaks for itself, but sadly the race lacks organisation. There seemed to be a shortage of toilets near the baggage drop and there were huge queues at mile three for the portaloos. This is unusual for a 10K race in my view. It did however, offer plenty of water stations throughout the race.After a welcome from the Mayor of Westminster, the race began 15 minutes late for no apparent reason. There weren’t any individual pens for runners to start in, which meant you were lumped in with everyone else regardless of your ability and fitness levels. I started about halfway back and it took a good ten minutes to get over the start line. It’s probably fair to say that this race is a victim of its own success – it’s so crowded that it’s almost impossible to get any kind of decent or even consistent pace when you run and it seemed that there were a lot of ill-prepared participants who were walking after 1km and holding up the committed runners who had put in the training sessions required to achieve a decent time. As the race continued, the crowds didn’t seem to even out and several times I found myself tripping over water bottles, bumping into people and having other runners bumping into me. At one point, I was struck on the arm by a discarded water bottle – a first for me during a race. I began to feel like I was rushing to get to the front of the queue in the January sales and I actually felt quite irritated by other runners as the race continued. I tried to calm down and take a more philosophical approach to the race, but my well-intentioned efforts to remain patient expired on the last 1km, when I couldn’t even manage a sprint finish to the end without risking bumping into other participants. I’m not a fast runner and I wouldn’t want to project an image of arrogance by constantly commenting on the fact that other runners slowed me down. But the truth is, the British 10K is a race that’s more about mass participation from those who want to embrace London in a touristy way rather than runners who want to put in the training and achieve a reasonable race time. In short, it’s a race for tourists and sightseers. Nothing wrong with that, but awkward for those who want to take part and enjoy a consistent and reasonable run.On the final part of the race, I almost collided with a runner who had stopped completely in the middle of the road to have her photo taken by a fellow runner, who was crouched down just yards ahead of her. This happened on two separate occasions. I understand the route of the British 10K is attractive and provides a good background for souvenir photographs, but that’s not a good enough reason to stop in the middle of a busy race and put everyone at risk of an accident or injury.The best part of this race? The ice cream van stationed next to the baggage collection. (Mine was a 99!) Next year, I’ll give this one a miss and stick to the Bupa London 10,000 in May, which takes in a similarly scenic route around the capital and also offers slick organisation. As one of my friends and fellow participants said at the end: ‘I felt like I was running on the spot half the time. And I kept getting jostled!’ Enough said.
The British 10K is in its 11th year and boasts huge participation levels. Over 25,000 runners turned up to take part in the race, which offers a perfect route for tourists, and those enamoured with the sights of London. It starts at London’s Hyde Park Corner and takes in the most striking touristy parts of the capital, including Pall Mall, St Paul’s Cathedral, Houses Of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The route speaks for itself, but sadly the race lacks organisation. There seemed to be a shortage of toilets near the baggage drop and there were huge queues at mile three for the portaloos. This is unusual for a 10K race in my view. It did however, offer plenty of water stations throughout the race.After a welcome from the Mayor of Westminster, the race began 15 minutes late for no apparent reason. There weren’t any individual pens for runners to start in, which meant you were lumped in with everyone else regardless of your ability and fitness levels. I started about halfway back and it took a good ten minutes to get over the start line. It’s probably fair to say that this race is a victim of its own success – it’s so crowded that it’s almost impossible to get any kind of decent or even consistent pace when you run and it seemed that there were a lot of ill-prepared participants who were walking after 1km and holding up the committed runners who had put in the training sessions required to achieve a decent time. As the race continued, the crowds didn’t seem to even out and several times I found myself tripping over water bottles, bumping into people and having other runners bumping into me. At one point, I was struck on the arm by a discarded water bottle – a first for me during a race. I began to feel like I was rushing to get to the front of the queue in the January sales and I actually felt quite irritated by other runners as the race continued. I tried to calm down and take a more philosophical approach to the race, but my well-intentioned efforts to remain patient expired on the last 1km, when I couldn’t even manage a sprint finish to the end without risking bumping into other participants. I’m not a fast runner and I wouldn’t want to project an image of arrogance by constantly commenting on the fact that other runners slowed me down. But the truth is, the British 10K is a race that’s more about mass participation from those who want to embrace London in a touristy way rather than runners who want to put in the training and achieve a reasonable race time. In short, it’s a race for tourists and sightseers. Nothing wrong with that, but awkward for those who want to take part and enjoy a consistent and reasonable run.On the final part of the race, I almost collided with a runner who had stopped completely in the middle of the road to have her photo taken by a fellow runner, who was crouched down just yards ahead of her. This happened on two separate occasions. I understand the route of the British 10K is attractive and provides a good background for souvenir photographs, but that’s not a good enough reason to stop in the middle of a busy race and put everyone at risk of an accident or injury.The best part of this race? The ice cream van stationed next to the baggage collection. (Mine was a 99!) Next year, I’ll give this one a miss and stick to the Bupa London 10,000 in May, which takes in a similarly scenic route around the capital and also offers slick organisation. As one of my friends and fellow participants said at the end: ‘I felt like I was running on the spot half the time. And I kept getting jostled!’ Enough said.