Neuss 5k (Germany)
Crash, Bang, Wallop!
It was like something out of a cartoon with people hitting barriers, guys falling over and poles being pulled to the floor!
Lets start at the beginning here....I walked to the start (about 1k from hotel) with Russell Dessaix-Chin, Matt O'Dowd and Dita Baumann, I know...the 5k Olympic champion from 1992. He introduced himself in the lift to me and Russell (although we knew who he was) and asked to walk over together, he was quite interested in us all especially Matt as he knew his old coach very well (Bruce Tulloh).
I warmed up with Matt and Russell going for a 10-15 minute easy jog and then we sort of did our own thing drills, stretching and strides before going to the start. There were a lot of people about even though it had rained all day. The atmosphere was building and with a very small field of about 30 including the women we set off at 9.30pm.
When I say it had rained all day, I mean rain! And this made it pretty slick on the ground, put together with 3 laps of tight bends it turned it to a bit of a 'bamby on ice' type scene. After 150m there is a left bend but slopes to the right which was bad enough when people are jostling for position but another 150m and there's a sharp 180 degree bend. As the group hammered towards this nasty turn with me in about 11th a guy walks across the road and doesn't seem to hear any of the guys, he just makes it across but its to late for the leader who got his angles wrong and his foot went from under him sending him skidding across the floor. Then as I go to turn right the guy just ahead of me bottles the turn and runs straight into the barrier about 20m away....BANG!
Next up a left turn, then a bit further before another sharp 180 bend where a guy tried grabbing a pole holding some tape as he got the bend all wrong, trouble was it wasn't heavy enough and he just went flying off course holding a pole...CRASH!
At this point I though "What the hell is going on here!" another quick burst before a right turn where everyone is now tip toeing around every bend. Over a little tump before a tight section with the German drunks screaming "DITA, DITA" as the famous German athlete came through in the pack. A couple more quick right hand bends and back to the start.....another 2 laps of the same with runners starting to spread out as I move into 7th....6th.....5th....then on the last lap I caught 4th place before he made a mad dash for the line but didn't realise you had to do the 180 bend one more time, I caught him again but he hung on to sprint past on the line! Russell was just 8seconds ahead in 3rd and it was won in about 14.20. I crossed the line in 14.39 before the famous Dita crossed in 14.50 with Matt a second behind.
It's a great little race and I came away feeling really good, if not fast then strong with the feeling that I could have gone on a lot longer at that pace.
Simx
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