Got there at 7 and the place was heaving, despite being an open session some 'gb' coaches were running their runners through drills using lanes 2-5 and then on both straights were a kids running club and a youth team doing sprints, the net effect being all warmups, cooldowns, recoveries and fast laps pretty much had to be done in lane 1. which was also being used by 3 different groups.
net result was one lap into my workout which involved running at 10k goal pace for mile repeats (i.e. slower than most 400/800 paces people were running at) I either had people shouting track for me to gtfo of the way or had to dodge people walking along the first track. my resolve broke straight away and I said fuck this and went and sulked in the middle until most of the groups fucked off.
given the time by that point my planned 6 mile workout was out the window so swapped it for the 5k 'see how you're doing' time trial I had penned in for next week as it was a much quicker work out.
by that time I was free to pretty much stick in lane 2 and ran pretty consistently for 12.5 laps with one of my fast mates egging me round for the final 1.5.
wasn't an easy run but I recovered almost immediately (the gods saw fit to reward my efforts with a light mist of rain that started the second i completed my 5k and finished as soon as i'd done my cooldown, perfect)
previous 5k best was 22:29, new 5k best 21:34
I think under race conditions I could probably go sub 21 now with a bit of adrenaline and a big crowd. think I might have to find a decent parkrun in 2 weeks and see how I do.
Ran a new 5k PB yesterday at track.
Got there at 7 and the place was heaving, despite being an open session some 'gb' coaches were running their runners through drills using lanes 2-5 and then on both straights were a kids running club and a youth team doing sprints, the net effect being all warmups, cooldowns, recoveries and fast laps pretty much had to be done in lane 1. which was also being used by 3 different groups.
net result was one lap into my workout which involved running at 10k goal pace for mile repeats (i.e. slower than most 400/800 paces people were running at) I either had people shouting track for me to gtfo of the way or had to dodge people walking along the first track. my resolve broke straight away and I said fuck this and went and sulked in the middle until most of the groups fucked off.
given the time by that point my planned 6 mile workout was out the window so swapped it for the 5k 'see how you're doing' time trial I had penned in for next week as it was a much quicker work out.
by that time I was free to pretty much stick in lane 2 and ran pretty consistently for 12.5 laps with one of my fast mates egging me round for the final 1.5.
wasn't an easy run but I recovered almost immediately (the gods saw fit to reward my efforts with a light mist of rain that started the second i completed my 5k and finished as soon as i'd done my cooldown, perfect)
previous 5k best was 22:29, new 5k best 21:34
I think under race conditions I could probably go sub 21 now with a bit of adrenaline and a big crowd. think I might have to find a decent parkrun in 2 weeks and see how I do.
All in all though, not bad for a 96kg lad.