Battersea Park Friday Night Under The Lights - Apr 2023

One of my favorite races on the calendar. Well worth the journey.

So the build up and morning is in my training blog - usual stuff. Definitely took this a little more seriously and eased back a lot this week as I wanted to see how really fresh legs felt.

Train from Royston to Kings X was full of gooners (fucksake). Got to Sloan Square and jogged to Battersea Park (about a mile to the band stand). Jesus I felt absolutely pinging, to the point I had to ease back as it was 1hr 20 before kick off.

Few wees, got my number and sat around. Did a good warm up, lots of drills and some stretching (didn't need much, rest day yesterday so legs were feeling good).

In 2nd race of the night (the slowest). Line up on row 3/4 and start. Fuck, it's like Ferry Meadows. 500m in I'm barely in the top 10 of women. Ease through. Nearly take out womens leader on first bend but quickly catch and settle behind my pre race target pacemaker - Andy Leach. He battered me on the 10k at Thorney so I know hes (a) very strong and (b) very sensible. Sit in through first km. 

Now, I am wearing my Timex so splits may be wrong from memory plus course markers may be wrong. First km up in 3.06. I know it's too quick but it actually feels a good too quick - i.e. I'm not going to explode.

2nd km, I'm in with my man Andy and following. We're working through now. One guy miles ahead and a pack in front. Pass 2km and I glance at 6.27 (3.21) which seems wrong but hey-ho. As we round the bend to the start - finish straight, I pass what I reckon is half way line and I'm pretty much bang on 8 mins.

I make a call and decide to move forwards now into the third km and try to move on to the group in front. Little dig and unlike last race at Thorney I actually make the catch. Sit in and ease up. I'm on the rivet now. Pass 3km in 9.41 on my Timex (3.14). 

Now it's a struggle. 4th km actually goes by quite quickly but the camber at Battersea is fucking annoying. Go through in about 12.57 (3.16) from memory. I wanted to see sub 13 mins and have a feeling I could really gun a 3 min last km lol 

Last km, I know once you get through a couple of hundred metres you go through the bollardy bit, then you can see the last turn. From there it's less than a minute. I'm struggling holding it together, this is hard work. Mental math says I should be able to do 16.20 but I have no idea and math seems too complicated all of a sudden. Group in front move away a bit, tell myself hammer from the turn. Pass the start finish mat and can see the line. Push hard, look back and everyone is closing. Stagger over the line and try not to puke everywhere !!

Stop my watch WAY after the finish and started early. Reads 16.16 - fucking get in !! 7th in my wave.

Grab kit and jog directly back to station to try and make the 20.09 train home. I have no phone so it's a journey of reflection and time to think it over. Grab a coke and gluten free chicken nuggets for the train.

Once I am back to the station I get the official results - 16.11 - happy days. 18 sec OAPB and finally a result that I thought I could achieve. Feels like mental and physical fitness finally collided. 89% WAVA is only good for about 120th on the night and 7th / 10 V45. Jesus, some field assembled. Work still to be done but what a start.

I felt in my head par would be 16.20 - 16.25 so to go low 16s already with 2 really good fast races coming up is brilliant.

Makes Mid Cheshire next weekend interesting, I'll have a good chance to go sub 16 there. Either way, confident now as I reckon just running getting used to running at this pace regularly will start to unlock fitness.

Fresh legs - really help. Have to have confidence to back right off into a target race to run well. I've run hard 2-3 days out just for confidence and it's affected results.

Volume reps - faster pace reps from 800m to 2 miles at a decent pace have really paid off in this block. Feel strong running low 5s. You are what you run. Starting fast today did not feel horrific like previous years.

Ditch the Garmin / Strava - I'll blog about this specifically in the future. It's really helping me, I run to feel and I run off confidence. It sounds too preachy to bang on about it now but my life is better without it.