Never Stop: Jess Sets Her Benchmark 10K

In partnership with Under Armour

“I was thinking this is so hard, how am I going to get through this.”

There always comes a moment in a race or time trial when things get difficult. The pace feels too fast, the finish line too far away. That happened to Jess around 7K into a 10K run where she was trying to see how fast she could cover the distance before beginning training – her first ever specific 10K training block – to attempt to set a new PB at La Cursa El Corte Inglés 10K in May.

Jess started faster than she’d planned, running 3:58 for the first kilometre, before her nerves and excitement settled along with her pace, running 4:04, 4:01 and 4:04 for the next three Ks. Her heart rate was where she wanted it to be, and it felt manageable. For now.

Jess can put a lot of pressure on herself when she runs. “Every time I want to go out and run a fast 10K, I want to be the best I ever was,” she says, so in this training programme she’s working on her mental strength as well as her physical fitness.

“I think it’s so important to know that you don’t need to be the best, you just need to be better than you were yesterday,” she says. “If you think in a positive mindset you’re so much more likely to get it done.”

Jess is using the Under Armour Infinite Elite for all her training and for her race. “I usually train in a different shoe to what I race in, so I was a little nervous about trying out wearing the Infinite Elite for everything, but everything that I’ve thrown at them has been amazing. I’ve loved them!”

They were working very well in the time trial, with Jess remaining consistent – metronomic! – through the next two kilometres in 4:04.

Then the run started to get difficult.

Jess questioned if she’d gone out too fast, and if she could maintain the pace. “Every single time I face a challenge like this, I think that I can’t do it,” Jess says. “But then I started actually getting into my thoughts, and focused on why I love running and why I don’t want to stop.”

Jess flipped her mindset and started smiling to herself, remembering what she was doing, and why it mattered to her. “I think finding that intrinsic determination and motivation was so helpful to get me through it,” she says. “And as cheesy as it sounds, smiling makes you feel so much better.”

And with a smile on her face, she sped up.

A 4:02, then a 3:57, as Jess ran as hard as she could through to the end.

“That’s what really matters,” she says, “that you’ve given it everything you’ve got.” Her final kilometre was an incredible 3:52.

Jess finished the benchmark solo time trial in the amazing time of 40:17, and has now set herself the target of running La Cursa El Corte Inglés 10K in under 39 minutes.

“I’m so over the moon that I can get that close to 40 minutes,” Jess says. “It gives me that extra incentive to push really hard over the next few weeks.”

Now the training begins for Jess’s PB attempt in May. “I can only get better from here, right?”

You can follow Jess’s training with the help of Under Armour on YouTube, and below is the video of her 10K time trial attempt so you can see for yourself how she got on.