Dead Runners society race report
Cambridgeshire County track championships,
St. Ives – saturday 12th May 2001.
Back to the track at a familiar venue
for the two of us as we ran for our club in the county
championships.
Evenin all
Tony and Shelley here in warm and sunny
england with a report on today's trip to the track for the Cambridgeshire County
Championships. This weekend is county championships weekend, all over england
people are running, jumping and throwing to try and be the best in their county.
Cambridgeshire was no exception so this morning off we drove to St. Ives to the
Hunts. AC track, a very familiar track for us as we used to be members of Hunts.
AC.
Shelley was timekeeping today as well as
running so we turned up nice and early so that Shelley could meet up with the
other timekeepers. Tony drove off to buy some sunscreen as he was going to be
out in the sun all day, the sun here is not as fierce as it is in California or
the South of France but it can burn you all the same.
Shelley spent the morning timekeeping and
Tony watched some of the events and chatted to some of the athletes from
Cambridge University AC.
Shelley was down to race first in the
1500m
Shelley's report
Well, surprise, surprise, another pb, but the
bad news is that I didn't quite break 5:40 like I was trying to do. But I got
very close, 5:41.9, previous best from the veterans' meet was 5:47.6. It was a
pretty fast group, so if it hadn't been for a clubmate of mine Julie who I have
beat in other races running in it, I would have been running all alone. The big
surprise for me was that Julie took off quite a bit ahead of me, which dragged
me off to a bit of a fast lap, starting behind her made me think I had started
too slow. But when I got to 100m in 20s, I knew that either Julie was having a
very good day, or she had gone of ludicrously too fast. I have beaten this lady
in 3000m, and she is more of a strength runner than I am, so I knew if I could
beat her in 3000m I should be able to easily beat her in 1500m. What she was
doing going out that fast I had no idea, but I slowed down a bit after 100m, and
let her go, but I still did the first lap in 86. Slowed down maybe a bit too
much after that, but go through the second lap in just about spot on 3:00. The
game plan from there was to get to the bell before 4:10 come hell or high water
and let the last lap happen the way it wants to happen. I just about made it,
getting there in 4:11, having gained on Julie, surprisingly not passed her.
Julie is one tough lady. So in the last lap I used the motivation to pass her to
keep me going. I didn't really speed up that much, it was more that she finally
felt her fast start. So I passed her in the back straight, getting to 200m
wondering if it was going to be my turn to fall apart, but by then knowing that
it was only a sprint left, and especially at 100m when my legs were feeling
pretty bad, then I knew it was close enough to the finish for me to be able to
practically hold my breath and go for it. Having been a timekeeper, I know
better than to press my watch at the finish, so I just let it go, and by the
time I look at it, it said 5:42.xx. Fortunately with being a timekeeper, I was
able to quite soon find out from the other timekeepers what my official time
was, and they congratulated me for not being last. I was 6th out of 7 in the
race, 4th in my over 17 age group. I get another chance next week at the
Southern Women's meet. Tuesday I'm planning some 3:00 EVENLY paced 800m reps in
hopes that this will help the beginning of my race.
Eventually it was time for Tony to warm up
for his 5000m race.
Tony's report
At 3.45, 35 minutes before the race, I jogged
an easy mile and then put on my Cambridge and Coleridge club vest and walked
round to the start. I did some stretching, on with the spikes and did another
1/2 mile of jogging and striding down the back straight. Then it was time to
race, 9 had entered the race but only 4 lined up, the other 3 all looked a lot
faster than me. Bang and off we went, I immediately settled into last place and
watched the other 3 pull away. I was hoping to try and get under 20 minutes
today, 1st lap 90s, 2nd lap 96s, 1000m in 3.54. Sub 20 pace, so far so good. 96s
for 3rd lap, 97s for 4th lap, 97s for 5th lap, 2000m in 7.55, still on pace but
then I got lapped by the other 3 :-( Now things started to slow, 100s for lap 6,
101s for lap 7, 3000m in 12.06 and I was outside 20 minutes pace :-( Just a
matter of slogging round the remaining 5 laps, it was hard work as it was rather
warm with a bit of a breeze :-( 101s for lap 8, 104s for lap 9 and I got lapped
again by the first 2 runners :-(104s for lap 10, 16.26 for 4000m. 102s for lap
11, 101s for lap 12 and 47s for the last 200m. Official finish time (from
Shelley) of 20.36, 4th out of 4 and I missed a county championships medal by 1
place (as did Shelley).
Not that good a run, I did 19.35 on the road
for 5km last month but that was not fun running by myself in those conditions.
Still as it was my 5000m track debut it was a pb and I got 3 points for
Cambridge and Coleridge in the club team competition. 1/2 mile very slow as a
post-race cool down, that felt a bit uncomfortable.
An interesting day out for the two of
us.
bye
tony and Shelley....
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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