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One is a PB but which one?

EDWARD LEE 29 NOV 2017

I had been looking forward to the Windmill 10K in Lytham on Remembrance Sunday. I trained hard for it all, ate properly in the week leading up to it and prepared well for it on the day. My best time of the year so far for a 10K had been 54:29 and I was determined to beat it.

On a nice day with not too much wind to bother about I actually set myself, not quite as randomly as it may sound, a target of getting inside 52:07. That gave me kilometre splits of 5:12 and I set off determined to do it.

As with a lot of events, the first kilometre was difficult with a bit of bobbing and weaving, but I only missed the split by a second and after that I stayed inside it all the way apart from kilometre eight where I had an incident with a passing cyclist. A bit of a spurt towards the end and I was absolutely thrilled to clock a chip time of 50:22, well over four minutes quicker than anything else I had run this year and nearly four minutes quicker than anything I had clocked since I started running again in 2013.

On Saturday, I set off to Wesham in good heart, hoping to get inside that time.

The first kilometre was again the slowest, but I managed to stay on course to clip something off the Windmills race time until kilometre 9 when I realised that the cold had finally got into my quads and there was nothing left to throw at the final stages. I did manage to pick up with the finishing line in sight, but I was three seconds slower than Lytham, largely due to two hailstorms which made life a little tricky underfoot! Still they were two great times for me and clearly one of them is a PB.

Just to straighten off one edge, all my old PBs from when I ran in my 20s and 30s are long forgotten. When I started running again in 2013, I was in the V50 category and decided that I would start anew with PBs and just talk about vet PB times.

So why can I not make up my mind which is the PB? It seems obvious enough, Lytham was three seconds quicker than Wesham. But here's the quandary...

Lytham only measured 9.88 kilometres. That wasn't just my watch, everyone I know who raced it shows up short on Strava as well.

Wesham actually measured long, but there was quite a bit of weaving at the start. At Wesham I actually covered an extra 180 metres in a three seconds longer it took me and, annoyingly, I clocked the 10k in 50:03.

I know I want to claim the quicker time as a PB, but it wasn't 10K. What do you do in these circumstances? I would be interested to know...

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