BTC 5km TT

Last  night was the first BTC time trial for the 2010-2011 season.

Consisting of 15 laps of the oval, the course was supposed to be 5km, although it felt like it was further (my watch read 5.2 and others with GPS apparently recorded 5.3km).

As expected there was a big turn out on the night and, after a warm up, some stride throughs and stretching we lined up on the start line and off we went. I didn’t really set out with much expectations as, despite not having done all that much over the week, my body still felt tired after swimming and footy the night before. Maybe the half marathon on Sunday had taken more out of me than I had realised?

Added to this, the guys who I know are about my speed were either not there or decided to take it easy and ran behind me for the majority of the race and so I was left to pace myself, which I know I am no good at! Plus, Tim wasn’t there to aim for….next time!

I mistakenly went out aiming for 80 second laps, which would have given me a 20 minute time but after lap 1 I knew this was out of my league and so I just concentrated on finding an even pace and keeping Andrew and Kathryn in sight for as long as I could. This seemed to work for the first 2-3 kms and I regularly passed people who had gone out too quickly and were fading as the race went on. With 2km to go I was still feeling relatively comfortable but I was still running on my own. Andrew and K had disappeared into the distance at this point. As a result of having no-one to chase, I didn’t really pick up the pace at this point (but then again I didn’t lose any pace either?!) and trudged on for the last 6 laps, not passing anyone, but not being passed either. Very non descript really!

With 2 laps to go, someone came passed me, who I first thought was lapping me (by this point I had been lapped by the eventual winners, some twice!) but when he kept going at the start of the final lap I knew we were on the same lap. At last someone to follow and to aim for! He tried to pull away from me with about ¾ lap to go but I kept surging with him and eventually took him with about 100m to go and held on to cross the finish line just ahead of him.

Overall, again I suffered from not having a good race plan and knowing what I was going for. I really need to think more about my races and aim for my splits!

Results wise, I finished 23/71 with a time of 21.23 which, when based on a 5.3km run, equates to 4 min/km which is what I was aiming for in the first place so I guess it wasn’t too bad really! Plus it is harder to run on grass apparently. K was the first female home which is great for her.

I had a sneaky look at my historic placings for the TT in previous years this morning and saw that my PB was 19.57 done couple of years ago…although maybe the course was shorter then!?

Under 21 minutes next time!