BUCS 5000m

I need a haircut!!!!!

The BUCS championships is a good weekend of racing, although a little early! It still is a good way to open your season and give you an idea of where you are in training.

The 5000m heat was on Saturday afternoon at 4.30. I never ran a heat in a 5k before. It was all about staying safe and making sure of getting to the final, wasting as little energy as possible. I wore flats for the heat to avoid painful calves. The pace was pretty slow for the first 2k or so. The pace picked up every k for the rest of the race. I went to the front with about a mile to go just to stretch the pace ever so slightly. Nick Goolab, myself, Peter Street, Chris Parr and St. Mary's athlete Stu Huntington made it through.

In the other heat our other St. Mary's team mate, Ronnie Sparke made it to the final.

The final was on Monday morning at 20 past 10. I woke up at 7am feeling rough! I am not a morning person but the cobwebs were soon shaken off! I got a BEEP from Craig Winrow at around 7.45 and off we went. The weather in Bedford, from my limited experience, is never great! It was drizzly and windy, but at least it wasn't roasting!

The pace for the first K of the 5000m final was quite slow - around 3.20. Nick then took it up and strung the whole field out pretty quickly. I hung on to the back of him until around 800 to go where I decided to make my move, unfortunately I didn't move hard enough and Nick stuck with me and went past me on the home straight. Steve Emery finished strongly to take 3rd. Nick ran a great race and I think he will have a fantastic season, nice chap as well!

There was a runnerslife 1 - 2 for Simon at least! I hoped it would be the other way around but it's not the end of the world.

I will do some 800's and 1500's this month as well as a steeple chase race. How these races go will decide what I race for the rest of the season.

Your only as good as your next race

Until the next one

Chesser