Thursday, August 09, 2007

Yeovilton 5k - Race 5 - 9th August

It's deja vu all over again.

Nice to do a race with one's training partner (well on and off training partner)... even though I felt like I was on a hiding to nothing. Warming up Andrew (Johnson) asked what my 'acceptable' time would be, and I said, "Anything faster than last time".

Nice to see Heather F-H at the start. First time she had run the 5k. She asked me not to tell her coach! She is running scared at the moment with the weight of expectation on her. As a (now) previous 100k world champion, everyone expects her to be 'amazing' every time she runs. I gave her some advice (as always)... "... forget it Heather, just run and enjoy the surroundings".

Off at 7:15-ish with the frontrunners going off at what looked like 5 minute pace (it was more or less). I changed my racing flats for training shoes a few minutes before the off... my achilles and right knee complaining again in the flats. And I kept the knee bandage in place.

I decided too to avoid going off too fast, I would track AJ for a while and see what transpired. (Must admit in the first K I wanted to go off with an older lad who looked like he was my age (he wasn't). Felt AJ getting a bit annoyed with my presence, but stayed behind through 1, 2 and 3k... running at around 3:45 k pace. I was planning in my mind when to 'push on', but AJ simply went away between 3k and the end. I lost around 20 seconds in the 4th K and 25 seconds in the last. AND I was trying.

Finished in a new PW of 19:28 (6:16pace) with AJ on 18:45 (6:02pace), so it's easy to see what I lost in 2k. My percentage worked out at 82.96% (they got it wrong), with AJ on 73.47%.

Poor Heather was even further off the pace than I with 18:25, when she was expecting something in the 16s.

Back to the drawing board... what is wrong with me, two PWs in a week.

Roger R.

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