Dead Runners society race report
Serpentine RC "last friday of the month"
5km- friday 30th June 2000.
Another trip to the big city to race
5km around Hyde Park.
evenin all
Tony here in merrie england where England
have just defeated the West Indies in the 2nd test match at Lord's, one of the
most amazing fightbacks in recent cricketing history :-)))
Yesterday the beautiful Shelley and I met up
in Hyde Park, central London for the "last friday of the month" 5km race around
the Serpentine (lake in Hyde Park). We have both run in this monthly race series
a couple of times already this year.
I was feeling rather tired when I got there
as I had had a hard week's training, I didn't that keen on racing hard but I
signed up and went through the motions of a warm up. The sun came out just
before the race started, I thought about putting on my sunglasses but decided
against it. This race has 2 starts, one for the fast runners and one for the
slower runners so that they don't have too many runners on the path at once. I
lined up for the fast start whilst Shelley lined up for the slow start a few
minutes later.
After a long delay we finally got going, last
time I did this race was just before I started in Oxford. I had trained hard for
this race and had tapered off but I got a bit carried away at the start and set
off at 18 minute pace, I blew up and finished in 20.15 drowning in lactic acid.
This time I was going to pace it more evenly and aim for 20 minutes. The first
km is gradually downhill to the lake, there are no distance markers but I knew
from the course map the approximate postions of each km point. I let the fast starters go and by 1km
(just under 4 mins) I was working my way through. I was just behind a runner
with a grey beard who I recognised from earlier races when he finished just
ahead of me. I kept passing runners to halfway, 2km in just under 8km. Feeling
tired by now and hanging onto greybeard. I got past him around halfway but he
came back at me. 3km in just under 12 mins, soon after that back to near the
start and a little uphill to the bike path where we started. Greybeard got away
and now I had to just keep going, along the bike path for a bit before turning
round and heading towards the finish along a very long finish straight. All the
way in I thought I was on to get under 20 but the finish didn't quite come in
time and I crossed the line in 20:01 :-(
Very tired on finishing, disappointed not to
have broken 20 but considering my lack of taper and the conditions that wasn't a
bad run. My best 5km since I fractured my knee 2 years ago.
After I picked myself up off the grass I went
to get the camera to photograph Shelley coming in but she was too fast for me.
After running 22.27 last Sunday she was hoping to get under 22 today but it
wasn't to be. Shelley found herself in the lead off the slow start and went off
too fast, runners started to come past her and she slowed down finishing rather
disappointed in 23.19 :-(
To me conditions were a bit warm for fast
running so to get so close to 20 minutes wasn't too bad. However, we met a
couple from Arizona who had just arrived in London at the race, they thought it
was like mid-winter back home, the lady of the couple ran in long sleeved shirt
and tights!!
ORN 2 laps of Milton Country Park for me
today, first lap with Shelley was at a reasonable easy pace but on lap 2 by
myself I slowed a lot. Rather tired from yesterday.
bye tony.…
--
Dr Tony Bell Milton, Cambridgeshire, England Tony@shells.demon.co.uk http://www.shells.demon.co.uk/tonyweb.html tony.bell@chemistry.oxford.ac.uk
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