Suffolk YMCA 5k

Apologies for the lack of posts, but it’s been a hectic couple of days. This one will be short and sweet too:

I ran the Suffolk YMCA 5k on Saturday, a traditionally small race, but one that’s well organized and usually a lot of fun. The race is pretty much an out and back on a gravel track lined with trees and flanked by fields on either side.

My warm up was about two and a half miles and served as a reminder of what the course was like. Seemed like they’d recently added new gravel to parts of the track which for once made the choice of shoes to wear an easy one – no racing flats for me today!

I felt okay on the warm up, but nothing special and my legs felt heavy – definitely the result of increased mileage this week and a few tough workouts.

As the start time drew closer I decided to attempt a 6:00 minute first mile and see what happened after that. At 9:00am sharp we were off and running and after an initial flurry by some of the younger runners, I soon settled in to a steady pace.

Mile one came in at 5:55, which was fine. At this point I was in joint 4th/5th with good friend Charlie Schindler and working hard to stay with him. Somewhere in the second mile, however, I was able to pull away slightly and record a 5:53 mile, but I could still hear Charlie’s footsteps on the gravel behind, and knew if I relaxed for one minute, he’d catch and overtake me.

I decided to set my sights on the 3rd place guy and slowly got closer and closer to him. If I could just get level by the three mile mark, I could possibly out sprint him to the finish. No such luck – just before mile three (6:02), he kicked for home and left me a bit one-paced in 4th place overall. Charlie came in about 10 seconds behind looking very strong!

My official finish time was 18 minutes 17 seconds – not a bad effort considering my marathon training, but although I feel strong, I have no speed in my legs at all. My fourth place finish was also another 40-44 age group win.

I ran another two and half miles as a cool down and by now my feet were a bit sore from all the running on gravel. With a 20 miler to run the next morning it was a good time to call it a day and enjoy some of the post-race food and drink…