Peterborough 5k Ferry Meadows
5k tonight at Ferry Meadows (as the title suggests!) The skinny is 5k in 16.49 for around 16th place (no clue yet).
Racing for me starts in the prep. The day before a race I like to get an easy run in with some strides and drills, basically a pre-race warm up within a recovery run. I try to get a good nights sleep and look afteryself. My diet is appalling so I try and eat better and drink plenty of water and stay off the tea/coffee/snacks/alcohol/junk. That in mind I still ate a bacon baguette for breakfast and had a couple of freddie frogs !!
I took today off work (the benefit of being your own boss) and had a nice relaxing day. Good breakfast, good lunch, plenty of water and was ready to roll. Prep went very well even though my legs ached a little but I was still confident that I had got myself to the race in the right condition.
Picked up DC and Kye and headed down to Peterborough with a good hour to spare. Met Ed on route and the gang were all registered and shitted out with plenty of time to kick off. Felt really good before the start. Unfortunately Al phoned in sick in the morning and the way the race panned out it was a real shame.
Warmed up, strecthed, blah blah blah... to the race !!
We set off at a decent clip and it became apparent VERY early that there was some real quality at the sharpe end. The first 1k is carnage with bodies flying all over the place, try to stay relaxed and latch on to DC very early. Feel fine going through the 1k mark in 3.10 and the first mile beeps at 5.10. Got knows what position I am in, probably between 20-25th place and leaders are nowhere to be seen.
The second mile slowly eases down, still working with DC. Wondering if he's having an off day but were in a group of 5 working hard. Couple of Nene Valley boys, a Cornwall vest & us two. 3k in 9.53 and 2nd mile was 5.27.
Borrowed DC's garmin as I had forgotten mine and there was no total time read out so I knew distance, lap time, lap pace & lap distance !! Had no real idea what time I was on for and it makes me think about dropping the Garmin from races completely?
At just after 3k, DC & Mike Chapman push on a bit and myself and Tom(??) from Nene Valley are working together. If I am honest, I feel here that I am banking a bit to get me to the last half mile. Next time this is the part of the race where I should probably aim to push on quite hard. From 3k - 4k I am reaching for the next marker. As we round the turn past the start with 800 to go I work quite hard and can see DC in front with a big group including Brian Corleys who I managed to beat last time out.
I work hard past the 3rd mile marker in 5.31 and push on for the last 0.14 at 4.59 pace. I chase down Mike Chapman who realistically I was never going to get but it was nice to mix it with some better runners again.
Happy at the finish, it's 22 sec improvement on last time out and I am riding the improvement wave again for the first time since last March.
Positives are that I ran well. Conditions were perfect and there were loads of runners around so always someone to work with or off of. Started really fast - the 3.10 first k is interval pace - but didn't die too dramatically.
Need to work on confidence from 2.5k-4k. I slowed here and saved a bit for the end. Really I need to work harder rather than saving myself.
Looking forward to the official results to see if they match up with the Garmin. 50 secs or so to go to break 16. When I started the season with an 18.44 I didn't think I would get this far !!
Racing for me starts in the prep. The day before a race I like to get an easy run in with some strides and drills, basically a pre-race warm up within a recovery run. I try to get a good nights sleep and look afteryself. My diet is appalling so I try and eat better and drink plenty of water and stay off the tea/coffee/snacks/alcohol/junk. That in mind I still ate a bacon baguette for breakfast and had a couple of freddie frogs !!
I took today off work (the benefit of being your own boss) and had a nice relaxing day. Good breakfast, good lunch, plenty of water and was ready to roll. Prep went very well even though my legs ached a little but I was still confident that I had got myself to the race in the right condition.
Picked up DC and Kye and headed down to Peterborough with a good hour to spare. Met Ed on route and the gang were all registered and shitted out with plenty of time to kick off. Felt really good before the start. Unfortunately Al phoned in sick in the morning and the way the race panned out it was a real shame.
Warmed up, strecthed, blah blah blah... to the race !!
We set off at a decent clip and it became apparent VERY early that there was some real quality at the sharpe end. The first 1k is carnage with bodies flying all over the place, try to stay relaxed and latch on to DC very early. Feel fine going through the 1k mark in 3.10 and the first mile beeps at 5.10. Got knows what position I am in, probably between 20-25th place and leaders are nowhere to be seen.
The second mile slowly eases down, still working with DC. Wondering if he's having an off day but were in a group of 5 working hard. Couple of Nene Valley boys, a Cornwall vest & us two. 3k in 9.53 and 2nd mile was 5.27.
Borrowed DC's garmin as I had forgotten mine and there was no total time read out so I knew distance, lap time, lap pace & lap distance !! Had no real idea what time I was on for and it makes me think about dropping the Garmin from races completely?
At just after 3k, DC & Mike Chapman push on a bit and myself and Tom(??) from Nene Valley are working together. If I am honest, I feel here that I am banking a bit to get me to the last half mile. Next time this is the part of the race where I should probably aim to push on quite hard. From 3k - 4k I am reaching for the next marker. As we round the turn past the start with 800 to go I work quite hard and can see DC in front with a big group including Brian Corleys who I managed to beat last time out.
I work hard past the 3rd mile marker in 5.31 and push on for the last 0.14 at 4.59 pace. I chase down Mike Chapman who realistically I was never going to get but it was nice to mix it with some better runners again.
Happy at the finish, it's 22 sec improvement on last time out and I am riding the improvement wave again for the first time since last March.
Positives are that I ran well. Conditions were perfect and there were loads of runners around so always someone to work with or off of. Started really fast - the 3.10 first k is interval pace - but didn't die too dramatically.
Need to work on confidence from 2.5k-4k. I slowed here and saved a bit for the end. Really I need to work harder rather than saving myself.
Looking forward to the official results to see if they match up with the Garmin. 50 secs or so to go to break 16. When I started the season with an 18.44 I didn't think I would get this far !!
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