I still haven’t decided whether or not to enter the Kells & Connor Charity Running Festival 5-mile race tomorrow. It’s a local race – the second in less than a week – so it would make sense for me to take advantage of something virtually on my doorstep.
However, it’s a relatively small event, spread over four events – a Half Marathon, 5-mile Run, 5-mile Walk and 5k Fun Run – so the field for each race will be quite small ….. and a small field means only one thing, I’ll be last.
At the time of writing the 5-mile Run only has 22 entries, although no doubt the numbers will increase a bit in the morning, but still not enough to keep me from getting a slap on the arse from the proverbial wooden spoon.
The only consolation is that all the events finish at the same place so I should complete my run in the middle of the half marathon field ….. and it’s that, and only that, that’s tempting me to enter. I’d also like to support the organisers considering they come from the same club as me.
Anyway, with tomorrow morning in mind, I decided to go out for a gentle 5k tonight. My last couple of 3.1’s have been amongst my best ever but I knew I couldn’t do that this time, I needed to conserve my energy for Kells.
To that end I deliberately decided to go for 5/2 run/walk splits, just to keep things easy …. and it actually worked out quite well, in the end.
The first couple of reps were quite frustrating and painful because my legs objected a lot to being forced into a walk after five minutes running when they were still warming up. In fact, it must have looked as if I’d forgotten how to walk because I’m pretty sure my feet were ‘clomping’ but this settled around the halfway point in the run.
After that I just abandoned the 5/2 splits and just ran on for the finish, ignoring the buzz on my wrist from my Garmin to revert to walking. This was quite reassuring for a couple of reasons – the fact I felt quite comfortable doing it, almost running within myself and also that I managed to ignore the walk alerts.
I felt at the end that I could easily have kept going, but as much as I’d liked to have done I knew I needed to save myself for the morning. I mean, it’ll not stop me coming last but at least I might feel happy with my run despite my finishing position.
Online entries for Kells have closed, so I’ll make a final decision overnight and just sign up in the morning if I have to.
HUFF, PUFF AND SHUFFLE 