Ran my first race on the track today. I ummed and ahhed about what event I was going to do. Initially was going to do the 5000m, but my leg started hurting after Thursday's workout, and I was considering just doing 1500m or 3000m. In the end, I couldn't be bothered waiting and did the 5000m. It was a bit of a last minute decision - I was walking up to see if I could spot Matt and with 3 minutes til the start, was feeling a bit toey, so took off my jacket and lined up.
The conditions were pretty bad. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as at about 10am, when it was absolutely pissing down with rain, but we essentially had a headwind the whole 400m. I tucked into the pack at the start, with no real race strategy except to get a PB and not come last. It worked ok for the first two laps when I just tried to get into a bit of a rhythm. Then I started to feel the pressure - just a little bit, the pace wasn't quite suicidal for me - and had a look at my garmin. 3:30 pace was probably a bit crazy, but I figured what the hell, I'll just try and maintain it.
About five laps in, my garmin died - out of batteries. This was quite a problem for me as I now had no points of reference. There was a guy calling out the elapsed time each lap, but I seemed to only hear the last part of what he was saying and in any case, running a 5k race is not a good time to be trying to convert lap times to pace per km in your head!
Decided to just try and stick with the mini pack that had formed around me. It didn't work very well. Probably because of the wind, we kept on changing pace as we individually fought against the swirling gusts. 3k in I was really starting to feel it, and it was just a case of trying to limit the damage.
Prior to the race, I had imagined really kicking out the last two laps and finishing super-strongly. It just didn't happen. I was at my max with four laps to go, and the best I could do for the last two was to just maintain the speed I'd been doing. The last lap was fun though. This guy passed me at the line and I really, really didn't think I could go with him, but we ended up having a bit of a duel. I passed him back with 250m to go before fading badly, conceding 10m to him and then giving it everything I had in the last 100m to finish about a leg's length behind him.
There was much back-slapping to be had afterwards, and in the process I worked out I probably ran about 18:24. That's an 18 second PB, so I'm pretty happy with that. In trying conditions, with poor preparation and pacing, I'm quite pleased with it. Funnily enough, that's exactly the time that my 3k workout on Thursday predicted.. Considering how I ran that one, I think I could get very close to 18 flat if everything went right.
We'll know next Saturday because I'm planning on doing the same race at the meet at Boxhill next week:)
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I mentioned my leg was sore. It's the same problem I've had for the last 3 months. After spending almost $200 on physio fees, I'm back to square one. I think the improvement I felt was solely due to rest and not to the elbows she dug into me and the needles she stuck into me.
So yeah, I'm not going back. Instead I'll just make sure I keep the pace fairly moderate between now and Saturday because I think that's what's causing the problems. A 2k easy run every morning should be the shot:)
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Rough map of the route of the tour:
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Got my pannier racks today:) My bike's looking like a beast! The panniers themselves should come on Monday or Tuesday.
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