It’s something you’ll find with most runners, we’re rarely
happy with our performance in races. Somehow though it seems I’m happier than
most, which is probably because when I started I didn’t expect much. Starting
at 24 and running 2:15.2 for my first 800m, improving that to 2:14.8 at the
next attempt and then running 18:12 for my first 5k, you wouldn’t have
predicted that this guy was going to be a star. And you’d be right of course,
there have been bright moments but I’d describe that more like torchlight than
starlight. Of course I am still critical of my performances, these last three
years they’ve been well down on where I had been only a short time before, but
I understand why and I accept that, whilst still maintaining the motivation to
train hard to improve, hopefully somewhere closer to those times.
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| A year after being torn apart in training and in a track 5k, by John Mather, and my first road race win, a 1 mile in Battersea Park - 4:35, they tell me it's a slow course |
It must strike some runners as odd that another runner can
be disappointed with a 35 minute 10k when the majority of runners would be
happy to get within 5 minutes of that, but I say to them, would you be happy
with a time 5 minutes below your best, or even 1 minute below. I had the same
experience once when I went out on a training run, one Sunday morning, from Belgrave
Hall. I was joined that day by John Bicourt, one of Britain’s top
steeplechasers of the 1970s and one of his athlete’s (he was an agent and
coach), Ismael Kirui, twice world 5000m champion. We got talking and John was
saying how Ismael had had a disappointing season, he’d only run, I think, 13:04
for 5000m. Naturally I was astounded, as a 14:35 man, at best, I would have
been happy with 14:04, let alone 13:04, but, as John explained, Ismael needed
to go sub 13 minutes in order to compete against the best. I could understand, it
was like the general club runner standards we sometimes set, sub 2 at 800m, sub
4 at 1500m, sub 9 3000m and sub 15 5000m (those were mine anyway).
So don’t begrudge us our moan, we’re all human, even if we
are runners.
Onto the progress: I’m still really finding my feet as I
lurch from niggle to niggle or cold to cold, it seems to me that, almost every
time I run hard I have to hold one aspect back, to avoid pulling something or struggling
with my breathing. However I am now starting to get some consistency in my
training. Since March I’ve really started to feel like I’m getting somewhere,
not where I want to be but at least I’m on the move and in the direction of my
ultimate goals. A 17:20 at the Halewood 5k was my fastest around that
particular course and saw me push myself harder than I had for ages. A week
later I managed 10th M50 at the BMAF cross country champs, a result
in my mind, considering only a few weeks earlier I didn’t think I was fit
enough to compete, sure I was a long way of the leaders but I was getting
competitive with those running around me, and to cap it all off I left with a
team silver medal.
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| Not letting that M50 catch me |
A week on from that and I was up in Edinburgh, once again I
ran the parkrun and was rewarded with a big improvement on previous times I’d
set there. The 17:12 was also only one second off the best 5k time I set last
year. Mind you I was on the ragged edge to get there so could see it would be a
few injury and illness free months before I’d be back under 17.
I hadn’t done a 10k since last year’s Trafford 10k but now I
thought it was time to have another go, so I entered my club’s 10k, in Salford,
on Good Friday. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to run but I fancied
trying to sneak under 35 minutes, and I was on target, for 2k, but then I
struggled with confidence in my fitness and drifted off target, slightly,
finishing in 35:31. Surprisingly I wasn’t unhappy with that, I felt like I’d
run it as a hard run rather than a race so all I needed to do was keep training
how I have done and wait for the confidence to grow, I know it will if I can
keep those injuries at bay.
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| Feeling feisty in Salford |
The day after the 10k, Carole and I flew out to Spain, time
for a break from our normal lives and an opportunity to train hard with no
external pressures (other than a stiff wind). I hit the training hard with some
of my tougher sessions and two long runs with steep hills, easing back just a
little towards the end of the week, as my body started to complain.
Back in the UK, and would you believe it I spent the first
night sick, must’ve eaten something dodgy on the last day. Still I managed to
do my fartlek the next morning and I’ve been trying to maintain solid training
throughout this week. I have another 10k coming up soon, I’d like to think
there would be an improvement on my time from Salford, but I’m not going to
beat myself up if there isn’t.
The Run Cross Challenge has been occupying quite a bit of my
time over the last few weeks, I’ll aim to give a progress report on that in my
next blog.
Written by Roger Alsop
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