23-03-18Workout/RaceWarmup -- run ~2mi in ~18 mins
Race -- 5k in 19:13 [watch timed]
Cooldown -- ~4.5mi in ~45 mins
NotesWarmup and pre-race felt terrible just like last time, just like last time. I get so nervous, haha, but everyone does. Just gotta remember that's normal and channel is, as I eventually did.
Was in the A race this time rather than the B race, so everyone was going for <22:00. It's also the last running of this race prior to the London marathon, so there were a lot of fast folk using it as their tune-up.
After the warmup run my watch was being a little funky, I don't really remember how, so with like 3 mins until the race was due to begin I turned it off, since restarting it often helps it settle down. It wouldn't turn back on, though, so I was like "fuuuuck I'm gonna be racing without a watch! How do I do that? That's way too old school for me, fuck fuck fuck." But eventually it turned on, with like 15 seconds to spare before the race started. Not ideal, panicking a bit like that at the start!
Anyway, the race began and I was in with a big group of people, lots went off way faster -- I'm quite excited to see the results, quite a lot of people <18:00 at this I think. Took a while to settle into pace, aiming to settle at ~3:55 for the first two km. I knew that the 3rd km had a decent bit of uphill, and that I'd need, then, most of the 4th km to resettle after that, so I wanted some cushion. Km 1&2 were 3:48 and 3:50 according to my watch, so that was good. Watch also said ~.97km at the official km markers, though (as with last time), but the course is officially certified and as LBSS is so adamant about telling us, garmin's can be fucky. Anyway, the official times for km 1&2 would be a bit faster.
Km 3 was the uphill one and I hit that at 3:59. I was hurting pretty badly already after like 1.5km, to be honest, so I was getting worried. However, I told myself that a well paced 5k basically is meant to hurt the whole time and that I went out a bit slow in my last one, so there was nothing to be worried about, this was correct. Km 4 the suck was really setting in, but I held it for another 3:59 split.
Don't really remember much about the last 5km, to be honest, just kept repeating to myself "you can suffer anything for 4 minutes, come on" which helped, though I didn't manage quite the same surge as I did last time. Probably mostly because I had less energy left in me, both physically and mentally. I went out a lot harder, so legs had less left in them, and I had struggled a lot more mentally since I suffered a lot harder, so my head had less drive for that finish. The latter is something to work on, I think! More hard intervals will let me train that "drive while suffering" part of my brain more.
I basically didn't really "race" this as such, just used it as a time trial to hit a big ol' PR. There were quite a few people running similar paces and we jostled and ran along each other the whole way, but there wasn't that much movement. Like three or four people came out of nowhere after the 3.5km mark, but they must have been negative splitting hard, like I did in my first race. They came from nowhere, like I had not seen them when looking behind, but then they just surged ahead. Good hustle from them, I guess.
Super duper happy with the time. Peeved that my watch said 3.07mi again, same as last time, so perhaps the route is a little short? 100m is quite a long way to be short, though, and it is officially certified ("certificate of course accuracy 14/320" and these people seem legit:
http://aukcm.org.uk/) but I guess they could set up the finish line a little wrong on the day, who knows.
A little disappointed in my lack of mental drive for a really strong kick. Despite that the pace for the last 5km was slightly faster than the first km, according to my watch (6:07mi vs 6:06mi) so that's decent.
Anyway, official results out later. Time to get serious for half training. Jack Daniels' calculator says I could be good for sub 1:30, eep.
Edit: forgot to note (1) that i vomited in my mouth at ~4km, which wasn't great, but at least I knew I was probably trying hard enough. (2) tried out my flyknit racers without socks since they're so light and socklike that this made sense to me. feet are blister city now, haha. dumb, but lesson learned. (3) looking at strava for other people from the race, most of them say 3.10/3.11mi, so i guess it's my watch. blarg. strava still thinks by 5k pr is 22:54, what a dick.
