Thursday, February 24, 2011

something a bit insane....5000m track race

...errr... I did something a bit insane...
regardless of all what I read about the muscular damages after a marathon, damages which can take up to 3 weeks to repair...

it did go this way:
Monday and Tuesday I felt my legs really sore. I could go up and down the stairs, etc.. but not really in any idea of running (not even a light jog...).
I do not know what happened, but Wednesday morning I got up from bed and my legs were 90% ok, just a bit sore in some spot, etc...
Then I started to consider that I was already entered into the track meeting long ago, and it would have been a pity to lose it because the weather is still good (cool), while all the other meeting will be in much warmer weather...
it did also help that I have some business appointments in the late afternoon near the track meeting venue, so it was really "on the way home"...
So.. call it insanity, but I packed some running stuff in a bag and went to work...
By late afternoon, I felt very motivated to run and after work I headed to the Stadium...

I can not deny that some other runners did really big eyes when they saw me warming-up...
my legs were  a bit sore and I had not idea if I would have been able to really push hard...

This said, I lined up with the other 20 starters and could not avoid to notice that I was MUCH older than anybody else, maybe double than the average age of the other runners...
the gun goes and I try to run around 3'15" for the first k...
The eventual winner and my teanmate Colin took off at higher speed, but I was in a small pack of 5 runners and we basically went along at 3'15" pace for the next 4k...

It is difficult to describe my feeling: in a sense, I felt like I was not suffering enough, especially compared with a monster effort of a marathon. The breath was quite comfortable, but I did not have the stride to go faster.
At 4000m I started to suffer, but it was a kind of subdued suffering....
At the last lap, we started to sprint and obviously I did not have huge legs...
I closed in 6th place, beating at the sprint a 17yo runner (!!) with a 16'23" clock which is anyway incredible considering the marathon.
(it is also a kind of PB for me.. because I never did a 5000m track race before... my 5K PB of 15'51" was on road)
It was quite funny that after the race, the most depressed was a guy who beat me at the spring by couple yards... he told me how he did prepare for 2 months specifically for this track meeting, doing intervals and intervals. And now he felt very depressed to just beat me by a little knowing that I did a marathon 3 days ago......

Well... now I will really take it easy for some time... but anyway it was great fun on the track !

2 comments:

Ewen said...

Not totally crazy... Garry Hand (M40) ran a 10,000 in 30:33 a week after a 2:19 marathon. 16:23 is good. You should race more on the track - run 15:XX, maybe a PB? Marathon prep works well for 5000!

Samurai Running said...

You can tell that guy you'd be more depressed if he had trained for the 5,000 track race and beat you in the marathon ;)

I did the same last year and although I suffered later as it took a while to come back to normal I think that was because I took a couple of week off completely after that 5000 race and before starting to run again. Maybe if you start training soon, albeit slowly. you'll be alright.

Besides I reckon you're made of stronger stuff then me, Roberto