Solihull BMC 5000m

Having returned to serious racing the previous weekend at the British Athletics League and run a less than impressive 3000m, I knew that I would have to step up in performance here or risk going out of the back door.

I was seeded into the C race which was being paced by Keith Gerrard at 14:25 pace.  This is a faster pace than I had raced 3000m the previous week so I knew there was no point getting too carried away with being placed well early on, I simply had to find my pace and rhythm and make sure I didn’t do anything rash.

The race started, and I was probably two thirds of the way down the field, I was running out in lane 4 and I didn’t like being here too long as I knew this meant I was running further than I needed to.  The pace felt steady so I opened my stride a little and moved up into about 5^th place approaching 200m and moved into the inside.  

It seemed that only a couple of people had been able to go with the pace in the first km.  I was reeling off consistent 70sec laps which is the pace I had been running in the 3000m last week so possibly a little ambitious but given that this was a BMC race I felt like I should commit, plus I was feeling reasonably comfortable, certainly more so than I did the previous weekend.   

I did manage to reach 3000m in 8:44 – one second inside my 3000m race time from the previous weekend so whatever happened from here I had made a step forward.  The pace did seem to drop shortly after and I was feeling strong enough to go to the front of the group and help get the pace going again.  I made quite a sudden increase in pace to go round 5 or 6 runners and I felt the effects of this soon after and a couple of the guys I had gone past came back past me and now it was time to really focus and go through the pain barrier. 

I kept my pace pretty consistent, finished in the first half of the field (8th) and was very happy with my final time of 14:42.  With about 600m to go I thought I might beat my seasons best of 14:39 set at Sport City before I conceded to my ongoing hamstring/glute problem but it was just too big an ask. 

Cheers
Dave