This year’s firsts are two new events on the track, namely the steeplechase and the 10,000. The steeplechase is not an event I had really considered before this year, but the club’s promotion to division 1 means we need all the points we can muster in order to stay there. So I offered my services.
Until only a few days before the race I had been blasé to the point of arrogant about it, and far too relaxed. That all changed when I went to the track on Thursday evening before Sunday’s race and returned home grazed and bruised down one side after coming off second best in an altercation with one of the barriers.
After this I went from a state of not worried at all to, frankly, shitting myself. The barriers are actually much higher than they look on TV and I still hadn’t done a water jump in training. Still, I’d promised to do it and it was too late to back out now, so after more stretches and drills than I’d normally do before a race I made my way to the start line. Once I’d worked out where it was of course.
The first fixture of the season was a 2k rather than the full distance. Good news: fewer barriers to jump over. Bad news: you have to negotiate the water jump 100 metres into the race whilst there is still heavy traffic.
The gun went and I let the Birchfield athlete go. There was no way I was going to let myself go off too fast. I slipped into lane 2 next to the guy from Stoke to give myself a clear run at the first barrier. Cleared. Good.
We hit the water jump side by side and leading with my right foot I made a clean clearance and pushed out of the water pretty well. This was the thing I was most worried about before the race and my nerves were calmed immediately. Just do it like that again and you’ll be fine. Just get round. Nothing silly now.
I ticked off another few barriers, and coming round with 3 laps to go I was now in 2nd, 20 metres or so behind the leader. It was difficult to judge my effort level accurately as it was a completely new feeling for me. Whilst I was working hard to accelerate away from the barriers, I still felt I could go a bit quicker between them so with about 2 laps to go I pushed on and soon found myself on the shoulder of the leader.
I now had a decision to make: do I tuck in behind him or do I take the lead? I was reluctant to go to the front in case I had misjudged it and got passed again, which is one of the most demoralising things that can happen late in a race. I stayed on his shoulder for a few more barriers and tried to give myself enough space to clear them smoothly. I landed awkwardly off the penultimate water jump, jarring my left foot, but had made up the lost time by the next barrier. Just before the bell I went to the front, not wanting to leave it to a sprint finish. I pushed on and opened up a small gap. He was still just behind me going into the last water jump but I made my best clearance yet and got away from him. I knew that all I needed now was to clear the home straight barrier cleanly and the win would be mine. I did. I pumped my fist in the air and I crossed the line, a celebration more of having actually finished the race rather than having won it.
I am under no illusions that the field was a strong one – the steeplechase is notorious for being an event of lower standards – but I was still really happy to have come away with the win. What’s more, Richard won the B race in an entertaining last lap duel with his rival from Stoke. Maximum points for the club!
Next time (yes, I said next time) I will train to clear the barriers more smoothly to lose less time on them. I also need to work on pushing further off the water jump so my landing foot falls just short of the edge and I can push off onto dry land. Oh, and I won’t do a 1500 an hour later. The less said about that race the better.
My first first was great fun and very successful. My second first is on Saturday and involves 25 laps of the Parliament Hill track at the Highgate 10,000m night. Let’s hope I enjoy it as much as this.
Saturday was a very special day for me for a number of reasons. The day started in northern Poland, where we had just spent the last week on holiday. With our flight home not until late morning, we got up early to go down to the beach and watch the sun rise over the Baltic Sea. Whilst I’m aware that I’m boasting here, I’m also aware that this is a real treat and not something I get to experience in landlocked Birmingham. It was stunning.
Once the sun had illuminated the Sopot beach, my runner’s instinct kicked in and I took the opportunity to get one more run in before going home. With my shoes already off and my running kit already on, I ran down the beach towards the city of Gdansk. The sea breeze was cold at first but the rising sun soon kicked in and warmed me up as I ran. At 6 in the morning there were very few people around, with the exception of some friends here and there walking home from a night out, or some early morning swimmers wanting to beat the crowds (or bathe in the nude in the case of one elderly man). After turning around at a pier about 4km away, I picked up the pace on the way back and was probably close to 6 minute mile pace by the end of the run. The combination of being tired from lack of sleep and being in beautiful surroundings put me in an almost trance like state, where I didn’t feel like I was consciously running at all. Left foot and right swapped places effortlessly, only breaking stride to cross a stream or move onto firmer sand nearer the water’s edge. It’s not a run I’m likely to forget any time soon.
We packed up our things and drove to the Gdansk airport to catch our flight back to Birmingham, swapping the blue skies of continental Europe for the more familiar grey skies of the West Midlands. It was good to be back. After lunch with my parents-in-law and some time spent unpacking I embarked on the second installment of my running day. Prior to my holiday I had agreed to pace some friends in their attempt to break 16 minutes for 5000 metres, provided I could get back in time. With the race scheduled for 7:20 in the evening I had no excuse. Not that I needed any.
The pace they were trying to run is close to what I want to run for 10k this weekend, so it served as the ideal training run. The added bonus was that it took place at the track on my old university campus; I was looking forward to running around the campus again and seeing what had changed.
Four others from my training group were there, as was Tim’s friend Sarah who was also trying to run a similar time. I ran a few strides before hand just to check the pace and as soon as the gun went, had a big group behind me trying to hit close to 76 seconds per lap. Within 500 metres I was hitting the right pace for them and now had to just focus on keeping it going and not slowing down or speeding up too much. With a group that size, slowing down could definitely lead to falls and collisions. We hit the first km bang on target in 3:10. I find that I can usually hold a pace quite well once I get onto it and we were hitting each split very close to the pace they had asked for. I looked back at every bend to check everyone was still there: Dan, Tim, Chris, Sarah were all there every time and even Mark, who was looking for a time in the 16:10-16:20 range was hanging on to the back of the group. Every lap that passed with the group still intact made me smile even more. Once we got to 4km in just under 12:40 it became clear that everyone was going to do it and the question now was how much would they all break their PBs by?
Dan, who had been on my shoulder for the last 10 laps and who was clearly itching to go faster, took off and soon got a gap on me. I dropped back to Tim and tried to offer him some encouragement as he made his big push for the finish line. I realised from the pace they were all going that some special times were going to be recorded. Dan was the first of our group over the line in 15:39, 24 seconds faster than he has ever run before. Tim, who kicked past me in the last 200, was next in 15:42, followed by me and then Sarah who also posted a PB. As I turned around to congratulate them, Mark and Chris stormed over the line with the number 16 not yet on the clock. All five of them had run personal bests, and all five had gone sub-16.
I know I shouldn’t bask in the glory of others, but I did feel a real sense of pride in their achievements and was pleased to have been part of their great performances. Everyone in our training group has been training really well this summer so it was satisfying to see it all come together for them. Moments like that are rare, and in an individual sport like athletics, feeling like part of a team effort is unusual but very enjoyable. My personal highlight was seeing my good friend Mark holding his arms aloft in disbelief after breaking a PB that had stood since his teenage years in 1994. It was inspirational to see him run the perfect race after training so hard this summer, and to see him not give up on running a time he ran half a lifetime ago. I will bear that in mind next time I complain about having PBs that are more than one year old.
A day of running that starts on a moonlit beach in Sopot and ends on a floodlit track in Coventry is not the kind that happens very often, nor is it one that most people would envisage when asked to describe the ideal running day. It sure was fun though.
Last night I made my middle distance debut over the rarely run distance of 1200 metres.
In the past I’ve only ever raced over 3k and above, but I thought I’d try something new. I turned up and was told that there would be two pace makers, one doing 63 and one doing 68. I didn’t really know what kind of pace I would run, but guessed that it would be somewhere in between. Not wanting to make my first experience a painful one, I opted to follow the second group. In fact, everyone went off so fast that I had to work pretty hard not to get detached from the back of this group. Half a lap in and I was in last position, and stayed there until we had got round the whole of the first lap. I glanced at the clock and it was showing roughly 68 seconds. A bit slow, I thought.
I started to pick people off down the back straight between 500 and 600 and as I pulled out into lane 2 to do so, was exposed to a very strong wind, so strong that I had to start working much harder just to maintain my cadence. It felt strange to be half way through the race already, having only run 600 metres. The next person ahead of me was the 68 pacemaker who I overtook just before the bell, passed in around 2:15. Another athlete was falling off the back of the first group so I made him my new target, a welcome distraction from the pain now engulfing my calves. I passed him with 300 to go and kicked as hard as I could. The home straight seemed longer than it ever has done before, but wasn’t quite long enough for me to catch the next athlete ahead. If I was in pain, the runners I passed on the last lap must have been in even more pain. I adopted the standard post-track-race pose of hands on knees and head bowed; most of my competitors were doing the same.
My finishing time was 3:22.33, a new PB to add to my collection. This was about what I expected, but I also left knowing I could have gone out a bit harder and still been able to kick on the last lap. I could have taken a few more seconds off, for sure. But that’s part of the learning curve, and learning to push myself to the limit over a short distance was the exact purpose of last night’s race, as I prepare to try and take down my 3k and 5k times this summer.
As well as these being the windiest conditions I’ve ever raced in, it was also the most fun I’ve had in a race for a long time. It was completely novel and different, it was fast, and it was also humbling to be taught a lesson in middle distance running by a load of 17 year olds.
Last night I took part in the 3000m at my club’s open meet, which also doubled up as the Warwickshire county championship race. The race itself had a very different feel to it; it took place at 9pm, much later than I have ever raced before, and there were over 20 people toeing the start line, many more people than there usually are in a track race. We set off in two starts, merging on the home straight after the first bend. There must have been 15 or 20 people ahead of me when we did. I thought to myself that I was either going to come last or that everyone had gone off pretty hard. I turned out that the latter was true.
I went through 400 in around 72 and spent the next couple of laps overtaking traffic in lane 2. The clock was at 3 minutes dead when I passed through 1k. At this point I passed my clubmate Martin who was bidding to win the county veteran title. Ahead of me was a runner from Bournville who had beaten me at 5k the previous week. After a couple of laps I caught him and tucked in behind. My 2k split was around 5:58. The pace started picking up with two laps to go and I just managed to hang on down the back straight. As the pace dropped with 500 to go I made my move and started kicking for home, and managed to surprise myself with my acceleration on the last lap. I held off the people just behind me and finished in 8:53, a big PB for me. Though I didn’t win the race overall (It was hard to tell with so many athletes on the track, but I think I finished 3rd), I was the first in the county championship race.
At exactly the same time last year I ran 8:59 in a time trial but this felt much easier. It’s interesting to compare my training with what I was doing last year and there are some subtle but important differences. I have been following a schedule put together by a friend, which has us running one session per week at target pace for 3k or 5k. This is supported with quicker than race pace intervals which makes the race pace sessions feel much easier. I’ve also cut the length of my long run from 20+ to around 16 miles, which gives me a bit more freshness when I’m trying to run hard track sessions a few days later. The main difference is that I’m not trying to cram too much in. As long as I do 3 out of short intervals/long intervals/tempo run/long run in a week I’ll feel I’ve trained well. A year ago I would have tried to do all four.
I’ll probably still look at my current training in a year’s time and decide that in fact it is all wrong, but it seems to be working for me at the moment.