25. The One Where I Ran Slowly On A Track

4 September 2015

So I turned up to the track this morning, expecting some lovely technique work and a bit of a rest frankly ... to be told I'd be doing a 5km time trial on the track!  Say what now?!  The look of horror on my face must've been a right old treat ...

I've never actually done 5K on a track before and it wasn't really fun!  It's 12 and a half laps of the track, and that half is extremely annoying because you really feel like you should get to be finished after 12 laps.  I ran oddly slowly - my Garmin kept telling me that I was doing 5:03km pace which wasn't good, but wasn't awful considering that 5K is not my distance right now, but in total I only managed 25:52 . SAY WHAT NOW?!  I think I paced it too well, in that I should have gone faster and not worried about holding back!  I definitely didn't push it like I could have pushed it, probably because I was taken by surprise.  Basically, it was all a bit untidy and I might have to do it all over again just to prove that I'm not THAT slow now.

After that, however, we did manage to get to the more fun technique stuff.  Have you ever run with your hands clamped together and pointing out straight in front of you like a Charlie's Angel?  It's a lot harder than you think it is!  The idea is to keep your upper body in control so that you're not wasting energy in bobbing from side to side.  Turns out I waste a lot of energy bobbing from side to side ...  I was just about getting better at it by the end but only after I worked out that you've got to engage your obliques to make it work.  I think I can safely say that I have never engaged my obliques while I've been running, so that is definitely something to work on.  Drills were super fun, so I'm looking forward to doing more in the next few weeks.