The faster stuff

Marathon, shmarathon, there’s more to running than going a really, really long way. Some people love “the short stuff”, such as sprints (100m, 200m and 400m), “the Mile”, 5km and 10km races. I haven’t done sprints in my adult life but I’m keen to try a mile race one day. 5km and 10km races though have always been an occasional part of my running diet. Most common of these are parkruns, which are social, timed 5km races every Saturday, and I’ve now participated in the events that are part of the Run Auckland series, which consists of 5km and 10km races, for three straight years now.

Since my surgery I’d only taken part in two shorter races, parkruns, albeit in a casual way. Now, with the marathon behind me, I’ve been primed to give one a crack full-speed to see what I can do at the distance. And I only had to wait 8 days after the marathon to have my first opportunity to run the a shorter race, the first race of the Run Auckland series at Western Springs. I’d run the Western Springs 10km last year; it was flat and fast and, to this day, is my fastest 10km race performance of my life, 40:50. I was a bit annoyed that this opportunity to run there was just 8 days after a marathon. According to the websites, you should aim to have two to three weeks of rest or easy runs after a marathon which I’ve loosely followed in the past. Prior to the race I ran easily but also with full awareness of how my body was feeling and responding. Overall, I didn’t notice any residual aches or tightness. I spent my anniversary over in Waiheke in the days before the race and on one morning gave myself a bit of a fitness test on the hills. (Waiheke has quite hilly terrain.) Overall I felt pretty good and decided I’d give the Western Springs event a reasonable effort.

My first surprise came the night before the race. One check of the website found that unlike the previous event, this was not a flat track. In fact, it would be twice around a loop that included the long grinding gradient up from MOTAT to Grey Lynn. (And a very sharp descent down Motions Road.) Hills don’t bother me much in marathons because you can take your time on them. In faster events, though, you still need to sustain some pace despite the hills. My second surprise was that after getting there early was to find that I’d understood the race time incorrectly and had to wait for the 5km race to be finished. I waited from about 7am to 8:45am for my race! I did the warm-ups twice and went on little jogs around the place to keep warm and loose.

The time came though, the horn went and everyone ran. The starting area was very tight so, just like some of the half marathons, I spent the first kilometre dodging, ducking and weaving my way out of the crowded pack. One new habit I have is to get my speeds for each 400m so that I can judge how quickly I was going and on the first lap I was generally pleased with what I was seeing. On that lap, I was only passed once and passed a lot of people, especially in the early stages. I had some friends cheer me from the mid-point, but there was a lot of cheering for “Naomi” who was clearly the person who was right on my heels. By the 6^th kilometre though I knew I’d gone too quickly and struggled before and on the hill. Two people, including this Naomi, passed me and I started to dread that it would become a procession. I kept in touch with these overtakers though and running along the plateau of Surrey Crescent was enough to recover me and get the pace back. It was a great feeling on the eighth and ninth kilometres. I hunted Naomi who was at the back of the bunch ahead, briefly overtaking her, before she would surge back in front. We all dragged past some other laggards and on the final turn down the Motions Road plunge I nipped ahead of Naomi too. Speeding downhill was a thrill and I briefly was on the verge of catching some others who were just in front, but once it levelled out they had more speed than I could muster. Again I heard the cheers for Naomi but this time I could tell she was further behind. I still put the foot down to charge to the finish line. I finished 20^th with 44:41. For the course and the lack of pace training, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Also with only one person successfully overtaking me in the last lap (and overtaking a bunch) either I paced it well or paced it as badly as everyone else.

I’ll have at least three other 10km races and I have the goal of getting under 40:00, another symbolic milestone mark. This weekend though I’ll give parkrun a lash. I’m pretty sure that on a good day I’d be able to do it under 20 minutes by a substantial margin. Last year though, albeit on a harder course, I could only do 20:20, my fastest 5km race time. Fingers crossed it can again be another breakthrough race!