Dead Runners society race report
East Anglian Track League, Bury St.
Edmunds 3000m race - sunday 22nd April 2001.
On the day thousands ran the London
marathon I did something different, another track race.
Evenin all
Hello from England on our national day, yes
today is St. George's Day, April 23rd. As you would expect for such a crazy,
madcap, funloving nation as the English the day has been one long monday just
like any other monday. None of this celebrating our national days with fun
things like our Scottish, Irish and Welsh friends do, not the done thing old
chap :-) Public buildings are flying the Cross of St. George instead of the
Union Jack, that's how we English celebrate our national day!
Yesterday the beautiful Shelley and I did the
first club track meeting of the year for Cambridge and Coleridge AC in the East
Anglian League. It was supposed to be a home fixture for C and C but our track
is under repair so the fixture was switched to St. Ives, then with all the rain
we have had in the last week St. Ives was flooded out so the meeting was
switched to Bury St. Edmunds at the last minute. A familiar venue for me as I
had finished the Bury 20 mile race there in recent years.
Shelley left before me as she is now a
qualified timekeeper and she had to leave early to get there to sort out
timekeeping stuff. I watched the London marathon on TV in the morning until all
the elites had finished, I left the video running for the "fun runners" bit and
drove off to Bury. I was down to run the 3000m race, the longest track
event.
It was a cool, sunny and windy :-( day, at
least it wasn't raining. I arrived in plenty of time for my event. I watched
some shorter events including Shelley's 100m race, unfortunately the wind was in
the wrong direction for her so no pb this time. Eventually it was time to warm
up, I did a mile and a half easy on the road and trails near the track before
heading out to the 3000m start. On with the spikes and I did some strides along
the back straight whilst the youngsters were doing their 1500m races. Then it
was time to for our race, off with the jacket and tights and time to line up
shivering slightly in vest and shorts. C and C had 5 runners in the race, 2
speedy kiddies who were our A and B string runners and 3 older road runners
(including me) who were non-scorers. Take your marks, click. Try again, take
your marks Bang!
Off we went for 7.5 laps round the track and
battling the wind. I settled into position 1 from the back, didn't try to go off
too hard, first 200m in 45s. After 400m I passed a runner to go 10th and that
was the end of any competition for me. I was hoping to go faster than the
11.28.2 I did in Watford a couple of weeks ago on a calm evening but it was
going to be hard work in this wind. 1000m reached in 3.51.82, a couple of
seconds up on Watford. I kept
pushing hard into the wind, I was about 80m down on one of my clubmates and I
was gaining a couple of metres a lap on him but I wasn't catching him fast
enough. 2000m in 7.42.17, 0.16s slower than Watford. I could hear the leaders
catching me by now, with 2 laps to go the first of the speedy kiddies from my
club zoomed past. Just before they rang the bell for me the 2nd placer came in,
my time 10.01 at 2600m. I ran the last lap really hard, I lapped the last runner
with 200m to go and tried to sprint in as hard as I could in spite of the wind.
Over the line in 11.28.91 by my watch, official time 11.29.4, 1.2s slower than
Watford :-( Very tired at the end, that was tough, especially into the
wind.
I got some clothes on and then watched
Shelley's 200m race into the wind before doing another slow mile to recover.
Then back home to watch the marathon highlights on TV (any deads running this
year?). As Shelley had only been sprinting this afternoon she wanted to do a
longish run in the evening. We jogged out to the park and I did a lap with her
before running back very slowly. Shelley did 4 more laps after I left to get in
over 9 miles.
ORN for today, 5 miles on the treadmill and I
used some of the weights machines at the gym as well.
PS DRS Big List only, hope that Allan and
Susan Rube are doing better, a race to remember for the wrong reasons!
PPS Eurodeads only. Happy birthday Davi!
tony....
Dr Tony Bell Tony@shells.demon.co.uk Milton,
Cambridgeshire, England. http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=227580
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