Birmingham BMC Grand Prix (5000m)

Despite accepting after last weeks 10000m race that it was game over as far as PBs were concerned this track season,  I made a late decision to run here.   It may seem a strange decision but I still felt I could get my seasons best down.  I wasn’t that happy with my SB of 14:39 and wanted to give it one last go. 

I knew from recent races that the most successful ones had been the ones where I had ran even paced and so I set myself a target of running 70secs for every single lap (which if maintained would give a marginal SB of 14:35).

And it was going pretty well for 7 laps.  70, 2:20, 3:30, 4:40, 5:50, 7:00, 8:10.  Every lap was being passed on schedule, to the second.  I didn’t feel great on the first lap and was right at the back of the field, but by the time 7 laps had passed, I was well inside the first half of the field and closing down to within touching distance of the leading group.

The final time of 15:04 shows that I simply was not in shape to run 14:35 – or even close to it – on the night.  No grief from the hamstring or plantar fascia at all in this race, just simply a case of not being fit enough.  The last two weeks training have been better but I need a block of training that looks like that before I start to see some returns.