Dead Runners society race report
Watford open track meeting 3000m race -
wednesday 11th April 2001.
The start of another track season for
Shelley, off we went to the Watford open meeting.
Evenin all
Tony here in merrie englande with another
race report from the Bell/Walsh running team. Last night we drove down to
Watford for the first of the Watford Harriers Open graded track meetings. These
take place roughly every two weeks throughout the summer, I ran one of these in
1998, it turned out to be my last ever race for Cambridge University as I
fractured my knee a couple of weeks later and by the time I was racing again the
Cambridge student had metamorphised into Dr. Tony.
We were both going to do the 3000m, the last
event of the evening. Sufficient people had entered for this race to be split
into 2, the fast runners did the first race and we did the second race. We
watched some 1000m races before doing some jogging for 10 minutes, then we
headed over to the track. Whilst the fast runners were doing their race we did
some more stretching before putting on the spikes and then doing some strides
along the back straight to get warmed up. By the time we had done our warm up
and peeled off all the layers of clothing we were using to keep up warm they
were calling us to the start. There were about 12 in our race, take your marks,
Bang!
Off we went, I deliberately held back at the
start and I was at the back with Shelley at 200m, then I started to overtake
runners. 1st lap 91.92, I passed a lot of runners on lap 2, I spent most of this
lap in lane 2 and consequently slowed to 95.19 on this lap. By now my legs were
telling me to speed up and really start running but I held back a little, 1000m
in 3.53.20. 3rd lap in 92.13, on lap 4 I passed the last runner I was to
overtake in the race and by 1400m I was running solo. I put in a burst to make
sure this runner didn't tuck in behind and now I was going really hard, 4th lap
in 91.05, 1600m in 6.10.37. 5th lap in 91.66 and I got to 2000m in 7.42.03, last
1000m in 3.48.83. By now it was getting hard, as I passed the finish line with 2
laps to go I was lapped by the race winner, the timekeeper said 8.27 so I knew
that two 90s laps would get me under 11.30, my pre-race target. Just before the
end of lap 6 (91.51) I lapped someone myself, 600m left. The bell rang for me in
a fraction over 10 minutes and I pushed on harder, 7th lap 91.98. 200m to go and
I gave it everything, trying to do something approximating to a sprint. I
crossed the finish and stopped my watch in 11.28.09 :-) Last 1000m 3.46.06, last
400m 88.05, last 200m 42.67!
Very tired at the end, all that heavy
breathing and lactic acid was tough for a road runner like me, by the time I had
got my breath back I could see Shelley sprinting away from another lady runner
as they entered the home straight. Shelley's pre-race target was 12.30 and she
did it :-) 12.27.4, yet another new pb and club age-group best! We had a
pre-race bet that I would beat Shelley by over 60s, I have not yet seen my
official time but I make it a win for me by 59s, I will have to wait until I see
the official result before Shelley gets her 10p winnings from me.
We walked slowly over to the start to get our
stuff then I did 2 more laps slowly to recover. A good evening for us, I did
faster than I thought I would and now I wish that I had gone out harder.
Conditions for the race were good, rather cold, we started at 8.53pm in April in
England so it was a bit chilly and we were running under floodlights but there
was hardly any wind.
The start of the summer track season, this
summer I intend to do a few track races now I have joined Cambridge and
Coleridge AC, I want to get some speed into my legs before I think about running
an autumn marathon. Our next track racing is on April 22nd (London marathon day)
when I will do another 3000m and Shelley wants to try some sprinting.
ORN Club training with Cambridge and
Coleridge tonight, 7.5 miles on the road for Tony and track work with the
sprinters for Shelley.
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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