Dead Runners society race report
West Suffolk AC open track meeting, Bury St.
Edmunds 1000m walk - tuesday 14th August
2001.
And so to my last track competition of
the year and my first ever race walk. Shelley came along as well, here is her
post.
Two pbs, a change
of plans, and a new event today. The original plan today was for me, Shelley, to
run in a mile race at the open meet in Bury St. Edmunds, to finally have a go at
breaking 6 minutes and also prove to myself that I was back to where I was
before I twisted my ankle. After some discouraging recent times I was beginning
to feel like one false step had killed a whole year of training. I suppose it
didn't help that I did more 4 races in two days to score some points for the
club, but still I was feeling a great loss of confidence, so I was pretty
nervous about this mile race. (Winning the 1500 on Sunday was fun, but winning
it with a time of 6:30 was pretty silly.) At the same time, Tony had decided to
take advantage of fact that they also had a race walk there to try out what he
hopes to be a new event for him.
So after lots of talking myself
into how I was just going to take a steady 90s per quarter and wondering how it
would be to run a mile race on the track, we got there and found out that the
mile race was not going to be. So I was really pretty disappointed and annoyed
that they hadn't posted this on their web site, and we almost just went home.
But then I heard that they had added an 800, and as I got to thinking about it
realized that this just might be the perfect day for another attempt at sub 2:40
or at least improving on my recent miserable 2:51 and 2:54 that I did in windy
conditions, because the only way there could have been less wind was if it had
been indoors. After Sunday's miserable weather, it was finally summer again,
possibly even a little warm for a longer distance, but just about perfect for an
800. So there was a quick change of plans with also the realization that I would
have to be warming up while Tony was doing his race walk, because the 800 was in
just an hour. Tony's race started at 6:50 and mine was scheduled for
7:40.
Tony's walk
Tony here. It was all a bit rushed once we got
there due to rush hour traffic and a broken down lorry on the A14. I had to
queue up to get my race number so I only had 10 minutes to warm up. I jogged 2
laps of the track and then did 200m practice race walking on the back straight
before we got called to the start. I told the race walk judge that this was my
first time so he explained the system for warning and disqualification. This was
a "grade B" event so they would let you get away with bent knees but no lifting
was permitted.
4 of us lined up, a man who appeared to look as if he knew
what he was doing, a little boy and a lady who I later found out was the boy's
mother. Bang and off we walked, the man immediately zoomed off and I was behind
the other two. We went though 200m in 91s, I did the first 400m at this speed
running 3000m on sunday. I was feeling a bit self conscious as I walked along, I
felt as if I could go a lot faster but I didn't want to lift. I overtook the
little boy but he came past, he was clearly running in places, still he was only
11 so I'm sure the judge was being lenient. 600m in about 4.37, I didn't get
lapped. I was walking along with the lady, the little boy jogged and walked
about 10m ahead. On the back straight I made an effort to get away from the
lady, as we entered the home straight I could see from our shadows she was right
behind me. I tried to pick up the pace a bit more and I just managed to cross
the line ahead of her. We were given the same time of 7.37.0.
Fairly
tired on finishing, that felt like just having done the first rep on the evening
in a track session. I still had a lot left in the tank. I had a nice chat with
the race walk judge afterwards. He said that I wasn't really using my hips in my
walking, I was doing it all with my legs. Still not bad for a first time. I
intend to take this more seriously after my next marathon in October.
I
jogged another 10 minutes to cool down and then back to the track to watch the
beautiful Shelley do her stuff.
Here's Shelley again.
Finally it
came time for my race, and they had two races one for the under 13s and one the
teenagers and grownups. I was the only over 20, so was guaranteed to get a
medal, but it looked like I was going to have a good group to race with. There
was four of us an under 20, two under 15s and me. The under 20 had a best time
in the 2:20s, so best to let her go, but the two little girls had times closer
to mine. I hadn't started an 800 in lanes in quite a while so I was a bit
nervous about that, and also in general nervous enough about the race to feel a
little sick.
So off we went, with not a bit of wind. I was in the outside
lane, so I couldn't see anybody at the start except the fast girl passing me
quite early, and when we broke lanes one of the little girls got ahead of me,
but since she had said her best time was 2:48, I decided that I had better push
myself to get ahead of her if I was going to make 2:40, but as it turned out,
she too was on for a pb. I got around the first lap in 78, and on one hand was
relieved that I had started fast enough, and excited that I might actually be
able to make it, but on the other hand a bit worried it was too fast and I would
fall apart on the second lap, but I didn't feel that bad, so I tried to even
pick it up on the second lap. I had originally planned to really work to get to
600 in 2 minutes and let the last 200 take care of itself, but it didn't even
look at my watch at 600. I just went for it, excited at the possibility of
finally having a good race. The only disappointment was that you shouldn't let a
kid get that close to you in the finishing straight. The little girl that I had
passed outsprinted me just in the last 5m. I have learned not to stop my watch
when crossing the finish, but even from looking at it right after crossing I
knew it was a pb, and suspected I had broken 2:40. So we went to my timekeeper
friends and Tony asked them to put me out of my misery. 2nd place had done
2:39.7 and 3rd place had done 2:39.9!!!!
Tony again.
All in all a
pretty good evening, we both came home with medals. As this was my first
racewalk we both came home with pbs as well :-)
--
Shelley
Walsh
Shelley@shells.demon.co.uk
http://homepage.mac.com/shelleywalsh
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