Monday, October 15, 2007

Incredible ... I won a race

this Saturday was the last race of the 5K series in Hong Kong.

I was slightly tired from the long run and little rest, but in 5K it does not make sense to have moments of fear...

Without boring the readers with a detailed report of every meter... I can summarize as follows:

- my original tactique was to stick to the leader of the series for my master category and see at the end of the race if I could outkick him and win the series (I was 2nd...)
- We started like crazy at a 3'10" pace and I felt better after 2k (warm-up)
- With 1 km to go, I was glued to Mr M and we were approaching to the race leader. I was obviously working hard, but the legs were still fresh. We eventually caught him with 500m to go.
- With probably 300m/400m to go, I made a terrific kick and no one was responding. I was not sure of the distance left (the course is very winding and narrow) so I pushed the gas until the final 5meters.

The course was 300/350meter longer than 5k, so the 17'15" time means something in the 16'10"/16'20" range. It will be forever my PB in the 5350 meters...

Since the purpose of the blog is to discuss training philosophy for competitive amateur runners, I think that we can take a good lesson:

- the key to strong performance is always a good aerobic training: aerobic base and aerobic power. This gives you the power to race 5k strong from start to end.
- it is not always necessary to train very fast to make a fast time. I kept a 3'10"/km pace (5'12"/Mile) without having made any single workout of fast intervals. Probably I never went faster than 3'20" in training (unless strides).
- A high LT means that you can keep a high cruising speed without accumulating lactate. The extra-speed needed to race a fast 5k come from anaerobic power, but ON TOP of the aerobic power

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