Day 299/365 Shepton Mallet 10k

1610 Shepton Mallet 10k a road run organised by Total Buzz events starting at Shepton Mallet leisure centre leaving the town past the famous, now unused, Shepton Mallet Prison and weaving through the streets of the town before escaping onto scenic if very muddy countryside lanes. A challenging run with a couple of mean inclines along the way. My time of 52:08 was my target on a dry morning conditions were good. A good turn out from Somer AC for a club race, runners were called to the start line a few words of health and safety and they were off. One lap of the playing field to spread the field out before the route went out onto to main road along the pavements. Well marshalled runners were directed through the streets  of the town before heading out along the lanes to the North of the town. First mile a ran quite quickly soon to be punished on mile two with the first of two mean hills knocking the pace down to 9.28 min/mile, mile 3 managed to pull the pace back with 7.27 min/mile pace. 3 miles in 24:37 I was going ok but would have to keep this up for another 3 miles to beat last years time. Mile 4 just under 8 mins then I hit the hill a long hill and steep many runners were already walking, i put my head down and ran past them being past myself by a couple of runners. I kept pushing on I could hear the trainers of runners behind me running at the same pace as me, then a tall guy came along side me pushing past and then slowed I past him again, then he ran along side me. We were pushing each other along if he slowed I would push on then he'd come back again, we ran well up the hill, at the top a water stop and he pushed on past taking water, I took water we ran on. The same was happening now along the decline and the flat back into the town now he began to fade and I ran on trying to catch runners in front of me. Pace was increasing but I couldn't seem to gain on the front runners I could see two Somer vests in front of me and pushed hard mile 6 being 7.13 min/mile pace. Just had to hang in there and keep the pace going back into the leisure centre and again around the field Shepton Mallet 10k done, Day 299/365 done. Official finish time chip to chip 50:21minutes, 1.47 minutes quicker than last year, happy with that.