I have a love/hate relationships with 5kms. I tend to lean more towards the "hate" side, but I am trying to teach myself to "love" them. The few days after the half, I dealt with some unexpected lingering knee pain. I took it easy for most of the week until the pain subsided. Thankfully it did. From there, I got back into training and ran a wicked tempo at Half Marathon pace. Some last minute speed type workouts came next, in order to fire up the legs so I could attempt the Bazan Bay 5km.
The idea for the race would be to get a good hard effort. I had no idea what kind of speed I could find considering most of my training has been "half marathon" based. The week leading up to the race was filled with ups and downs. My easy runs felt okay, but the workouts were a bit blah. I thought things looked up on Friday when my easy run felt effortless, but that was short lived when my easy shake out run on Saturday was filled with effort. Both my heart rate and breathing were higher than normal. I shook it off thinking it was just a bad day.
Last night I finally fell asleep around midnight and no lies, I think I woke up at least 7-10 times between then and 7:30am. On a side note, I woke up at 1am and it was quiet. I woke up at 3am and my neighbours were blasting their music. All I could hear was their base, so in went the ear plugs. Unfortunately this is a common thing. They seem to turn it on in the middle of the night (jerks). I woke up around 5am soaked with sweat. Lovely. I already felt dehydrated after slacking on those duties all week. I didn't need to sweat to make it worse! Needless to say at 7:30 when my alarm went off, I did NOT want to get up.
Still, I thought I would make the best of it. I have had crappy nights sleeps before races and ran well, so I thought nothing of it. I ended up carpooling down to Victoria and unfortunately my ride arrived in Victoria later than I prefer. I think I picked up my number around 10:20 (11am race start) and started my warm up at 10:30. Considering I do a 20 minute jog before even attempting any warm up drills, I was running late. It was a rushed warm up that included only a jog and a few strides. Not my preference to finish my 20 minute warm up only 10' before the race, but that is what happened today.
The race started and I had planted myself beside Care Wakely and behind Hilary Stelllingwerff and Marilyn Arsenault. All mega fast ladies. As we started, the timing mat actually slipped out under the first couple of people. I think I hoped over it to avoid falling or slipping myself. The race start was packed and there wasn't really enough room to get spread out before they careened everyone over to the left hand side of the road. I found myself struggling to find proper ground with jerks weaving left and right, nearly tripping people by cutting them off. At about 1km into the race, I yelled at some kid because he had nearly tripped me multiple times. He said sorry before taking off.
My race was..... well a 5km. I had a hard workout and honestly it didn't go the way I wanted it to. I screwed up my pacing between 1 and 3km. I lost a lot of time and couldn't make it up. My legs just didn't want to go. Claire Morgan passed me just after 3km and I thank her very much for the encouragement, but my legs just would not respond. My last 2km were more respectable, but by then it was too late.
In the end I finished in 18:03, which was technically a 22 second personal best though to be fair, I haven't run a 5km since March 2010. It is not what I am capable of and doesn't reflect my full fitness. I am relieved it was a Personal best, but not overly satisfied with the race. The 5km got the best of me today, but I will get my revenge. Till next time 5km.... till next time!
As a note, Malindi Elmore won the women's race in a smoking 15:48! Now THAT is fast! Full Results here.
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