ASICS London 10K – 2023

I ran the ASICS London 10K in 2021, when I was still in a better shape and I remember I loved the experience. It is one of a few large mass event 10K runs organised in the centre of London, alongside the London Winter Run and the Vitality 10,000. They seem to have fairly similar routes and they all attract large, diverse and fun crowds of amateur runners, alongside the serious peeps up front.

The UK is blessed with a great running culture, with a lot of companies organising races from 5K to Marathon distance all over the country most weeks, so we seldom have problems finding a place to meet our kind and get a proper, chipped time to measure our progress. But there is something about mass events alongside world-class landmarks that makes these 3 special. The all have pretty similar routes: I ran the Winter Run in the past and I have to admit it is slightly superior: the route gets all the way to Saint Paul’s Cathedral and there are penguins along the route. I mean, penguins… But the ASICS London 10K is still awesome, so a couple of months ago I decided to enter it again, even if the fee is kind of obscene if you don’t take an early bird deal 1 year in advance.

I booked a series of races after my great experience at the TCS London Marathon in April: I wanted the accountability a proper race provides. It did not work as planned.

Training ahead of the ASICS London 10K

As said, I booked this race not only because I thoroughly enjoyed it two years ago, but also because I had decided I wanted to get into a proper, consistent training regime again. Not that I have ever been a crazily committed runner, but up to a year ago I was pretty consistent and depending on the week I would go through volumes of between 50K and 35K. Over the last 12 months a 30K week was a good one.

So after surviving the London Marathon with less than acceptable training, I was fully motivated to a good training cycle ahead of the ASICS London 10K and committed again to my adaptive training platform of choice, TrainasOne.

So yeah, the training block did not work. I will try to start posting a ‘running accountability’ journal. I know nobody would care about it, but I guess having it out in the open might just help.

Back to the 10K: I was nowhere near PB territory, but I knew I could finish it, so let’s go out there and have fun! 🙂

Travel and Start Area

The ASICS London 10K starts in front of Green Park tube station, by the Ritz. This is as central as it gets when it comes to public transport.

Plenty of roads are closed and this is full congestion charge area, so don’t even think about driving. Really, don’t. If you are as lazy as I am, you can Uber to the start and then take public transport back home.

If you are a bit less lazy or stick more honestly to your environmental values, Green Park, Charing Cross, Embankment are all tube stations within a very very short walk.

There is a runners meeting point about 15 minutes walk from the start. You only need to go there if there is something wrong with your BIB or if you want to use the bag drop, which will be another 5 minutes walk further away. Definitely not the most efficient choice of locations, but I understand they have to work with the space they have. If you need to use either of those facilities, just come in time being aware of the distances or have a short warm up job back up to the Ritz.

If you don’t need to drop anything or get safety pins/a new bib, then you can go straight to Green Park.

Then it is time to start getting into the starting pens. With 18,000 runners, it takes time and people need to be disciplined. I am getting the feeling people were indeed pretty disciplined. Your starting pen is indicated by a letter and the areas you are supposed to go to are well sign-posted. Your letter is printed on your bib and it was also sent via e-mail before the race, with indications of recommended arrival time (too early) and expected staggered start time.

Waves are allocated based on the expected finish time you had indicated when you enrolled into the race, so don’t lie. Or lie with knowledge of the consequences. If you don’t need to use the bag drop or have a new number issues, you definitely don’t need to come more than 1h in advance. In theory, 10-15 minutes before the expected start will be enough if you arrive at Green Park tube station, but I definitely recommend coming at least 30 minutes in advance to soak in the atmosphere and get into race mood. They are your people there, around you! Even if you don’t know them 🙂

After a short wait you see the elites start and those monster are fast. We cheered them because even they are disgustingly fit, they are still human beings, so they deserve (a bit) of support.

You keep walking in small bouts past the Ritz, past Green Park tube and then roughly around the Hard Rock Cafe you come at a turnaround point where there are cameras and you can see yourself smile for a few seconds on the big screen. Turn around and the arch and the mats of the start line are there. The staggered start eliminated any risk of congestion, it’s all up to you now, time to go!

ASICS London 10K 2023: the Course

The curse is a great review of London’s West End, mostly covering Piccadilly, Regent Street, Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, the Embankment, Westminster Bridge and Parliament Street. Quite the central selection, isn’t it?

A Relive route plot can be found on my YouTube channel as a Short. The full video highlights are also available on the channel and embedded below.

Obviously, given how central it is and the fact it is all on closed roads, the surface is excellent. Paved all through and nearly all on wide roads with plenty of rooms for overtaking. There are 6 360 degrees turnaround points that slow you down and are probably the only places where you can see a bit of a choke point if you are trying to hold to the optimal race line, but they are easy to negotiate if you are not trying to beat the world record.

As far as course descriptions go, this is pretty simple. It is all through very central and well known roads across the West End. As already said many times, the Asics London 10K starts by Green Park station and then it takes you through Piccadilly all the way to Oxford Circus. This first section is fairly fast and congestion thins out in a matter of metres.

When you are approaching Oxford Circus, you will start hearing the first of many music points that will often make your run more fun with their performances. Also, the approach to it made me appreciate Oxford Circus for the first time in many years. See the big screens getting closer without all the cars and swarms of people is definitely a different experience.

Here you will then turn to Regent Street, with its majestic architecture and dozens of Pride flags adorning it. The climb gets slightly more noticeable here, but still nothing particularly painful. The descent after you reach the turnaround point is a pleasant time to take a breath and pick up the pace slightly. Here you also have one of the many areas where runners are going in both directions on each side of the street. It makes the feeling of this being a busy mass event even more noticeable. I like it.

When back into Oxford street, you now can cross the roundabout in all of its grandiosity, instead of taking only a quick sharp turn like the first time. After crossing the square you go down fast through Lower Regent Street. Enjoy the descending respite before a long straight bank and forth waiting for you when you reach Pall Mall.

In Pall Mall, a quick right and a relatively short straight until you reach St. James’ Palace, where the next turnaround point will get you back into the other direction through a sharp 360.

After the turnaround, you will be met by the first mist shower, which is very welcome in the hot weather, also considering the fact that this race was quite lacking in water stations.

It is neither that long, nor terrible steep, but I definitely suffered this climb and I remember it being painful two years ago as well. Pace yourself and if you need it, take a walking break: no shame in it.t

At the top of this climb there was a particularly nice live music point and I definitely needed cheering up at that point. You can get a glimpse of it in my ASICS London 10K Video Highlights, also embedded below.

Once back down in Trafalgar Square, you turn left into the Strand for a short straight before taking a sharp right into a cut back a bit further than the Savoy that will bring you down to the next section of the race.

It’s around the 6K mark, so not exactly half, but I see the race into sections: the ‘inner city’ part and the part along the Thames, which starts here. The views become wider, the road is lined by trees, the river is on your side. It is beautiful.

You first go East for a little while and climb your last real hill before coming back down to your the Embankment again and start your longish run home towards Big Ben. Immediately after you come back down along the river you also have the first water station of the race, which was long and well stocked, but it got super crowded since everyone decided to stop. Often I don’t need water during a 10K, but if that 10K is mid morning in July, I would have expected a couple more along the route.

Now Big Ben played the role of the traffic light 🙂

When you get there, the powers that be decided we deserved a bit more gorgeous sightseeing and, why not, another little hill: Westminster Bridge.

As anyone who has run the New York Marathon will say, do not underestimate the hillyness of a long bridge. You do feel it. But you have the London Eye and Southbank in front of you on the way South and the Houses of Parliament to look at on the way back. Plus a great drumming group at the turnaround point.

Several runners were stopping to take pictures, so I did as well. The pics taken while running are crap anyway. And I knew my time was going to be crap too.

From now, it’s a matter of will over energy, given heat and humidity.

You go through Parliament Square and up by Westminster Abbey, enjoy a second water station and then it’s time to come back to the Square and turn left into Parliament Street.

I think at this point you only have a 400m straight and run by Downing Street (swearing in your head is allowed) before you cross the awesome finish line pushed by shouts, cheers and the great support that was present along the whole route.

We have done it. As the organisers say:

Nothing feels better than running

A bit of an overstatement perhaps, but you get the idea 🙂

The medal is beautiful and it is nicely presented by a volunteer individually, which is a nice touch.

Then you keep walking and you get your finisher T-Shirt, which is good quality and it looks pretty good as well.

And finally, the ‘goody bag’, which was utter garbage. Two drinks, no food whatsoever: I get it guys, we are in Central London and can find a Pret behind any corner, but jeez, with what we paid you cannot have give us a protein bar? Not good.

Facilities

Mass participation running events can be huge and difficult to manage, taking over large chunks of cities and often mixing in runners, supporters and annoyed locals. Logistics must be pretty daunting, but small inefficiencies can make or break the experience for amateur runners who spent months training ahead of the event.

Lets go over my thoughts about the main items that can affect the experience then:

• Transport to start line: easy given location
• Start area(s): not overcrowded, pleasant and efficient
• Kit drop: I did not use it
• Start area toilets: far from start, alternatives available
• Waves system: smooth
• Start section: virtually no congestion
• Course: nice and scenic. Big thumbs up
• Toilets: enough, if you need them during a 10K
• Water stations: not enough for a July race
• Gels: None, but it’s just a 10K
• Finish line: beautiful location, efficient setting
• Bling: awesome 2023 medal
• Finisher T-shirt: nice
• Finisher refreshments: pathetic, no food at all

ASICS London 10K Video Highlights

I have prepared video highlights that I hope you will also enjoy. I do this for most of my races and parkrun events I attend, it’s a fun hobby for me. If you enjoy it, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I am very far from monetising it, but it is always nice to see someone appreciates it..

If you enjoyed this report or the highlights, you can find a list of my parkrun reports here.

Conclusions

I really enjoyed the race and the route it goes through. It is a really large event but you never feel it, it’s not crowded, it’s fun. If you enjoy running, try it. If you are starting to run now or thinking about it, book it for next year, now. It is cheaper and you can definitely train enough to enjoy it before next July!

Did you run as well? Let me know your thoughts!

Do you want to run it, but think you cannot? Let’s chat, anyone can do it, really!