Victoria 5000m Champs and lessons learnt

Despite running for a long time, through various terrains and in many different places, track racing has always been something that seems to have eluded me. Until Thursday, I'd ran two track races, one a low key 3000m on a sunny Sheffield evening two years ago and the other at the same venue for the Varsity 3000m this year. It's something that has always appeared somewhat irrelevant to me, very different to orienteering, and even fell running, where raw speed is not the be all and end all come the finish line. Yet I thought it was time to put a proper time down without any excuses of it being a parkrun, or I was running on my own or conditions weren't great etc. From the times the other guys had ran in previous years, the Victorian 5000m champs appeared as good an opportunity as any to give it a good shot and this Thursday just gone I tried to do exactly that.

My last outing on the track, Varsity 3000m 2018.

I know above that I've said no excuses, but perhaps my preparation wasn't ideal for this race. Coming off the back of Bright ten days prior as well as really no let up in training other than slightly reduced mileage, in hindsight I maybe wasn't in the best conditions. Also, long days on feet working on schools coaching projects added to the potential fatigue. Yet even still, I made sure to be eating well and resting up so I actually wasn't unhappy with how I felt going in to it. Whilst the race presented a good opportunity for a time, it is far and away from a major race for me and therefore I didn't want to taper and prepare for it as such. Regardless, myself and Joe turned up at Lakeside with an air of nervous excitement, ready to give it a shot.

Lakeside Stadium, the venue for out efforts

Joe was to run in the D race, whilst I was in the B due to our previous times and so I spent a leisurely couple of hours watching the other races. Joe ran a great PB given his own build up, then the light dimmed and it was time to start turning my thoughts towards 20:40 and the start of my own effort. Warming up my legs felt good but I couldn't shake this nagging feeling that I was a little flat or maybe I wasn't fast enough, basically doubting my own ability. I tried to settle these nerves as I pulled my spikes on and headed to the start but everything just felt a little off. My shoe lace was slightly too tight so I redid it and was a little late to get a number. The start was delayed so we had to stand around for longer than expected. Just a lot of little things that added to the nerves. In orienteering or on the hills, I've learnt to deal with these things and laugh them off or remember to focus on what I'm doing but today I just felt a bit jumpy.

Once we finally got going, I actually settled quite quickly, as often happens in races. Starting in the back group, I took the lead of our larger pack and settled in behind three other runners who it quickly became clear were heading for a sub 15. Honestly, this was my aim for this race. Quite a lot of people had asked me in the build up "oh, what time are you looking for then?" and I'm never someone who likes to say anything specific, more of a general "we'll just seem what happens". But I think I'm the same as anyone that really, internally, everyone has a goal they admit to themselves and very few others. The pace for the first couple of k felt good to me, sitting bang on 3min/km pretty much and moving well. From here perhaps though is where things began to go a little wrong. From around 2k, I began to cover any move the front 3 made, maybe a little worried of the pace slipping away if I sat in. However I should have told myself from the times the race had been ran in previously that it was fine to go with the majority as it inevitably sped up at the end. This I think shows more my track naivety and inexperience more than anything else, but regardless, the effort to close such moves left me feeling a little more ragged than I would have liked on the last mile.

Settled well to begin with but probably too far forward

As we hit 4 laps to go, I had planned to kick on from there and see what I could do. However the tracking of attacks which had left me in no-man's land for 5 laps or so had scuppered my chances of this happening. Despite maintaining my effort mentally, I began to notice the time slipping just a little until with 2 laps to go the realisation that it was just to be a grind to the finish hit. This is actually where I'm most disappointed in myself. I've generally thought for the last couple of years I've developed a good mental toughness and can either just get on with training or push harder when it gets tougher but I let my head drop at this point. This isn't the way I want to race at all and left me incredibly frustrated and annoyed with myself as I crossed the line 2 laps later in a time of 15:15.

The steady decline at the end

Now for what was really a pretty unimportant race, this write up may seem somewhat excessive and perhaps I'm overthinking it a bit but I think it does bring out some interesting points. The first is that I think I psyched myself out on this race. Perhaps because it was kind of uncharted territory, but not knowing my abilities in this sort of situation really messed with me a bit. The second is that maybe my goal was too inflexible and that really it would have been a massive step in such a short amount of time. My previous pb on a parkrun was 15:25 and to go 5s a km quicker is a big step that will take more than a month or so to make. So I need to remember to view such races as steps on a ladder, not the end goal. The final point is more difficult to put in to words and even harder to address. Basically letting my head drop at the crucial point could be a major let down in the future and is something I need to work on avoiding. Training is going better than ever and I'm definitely fitter so I should back myself in such situations but I seemingly have a lot of self doubt when it comes to bringing together everything on race day. This does spill over in to other races in orienteering and fell running as well so is certainly something I need to work on overcoming before hitting the season proper next spring.

For now though, it's been good to write down a lot of these thoughts, even for my own benefit if nothing else. I'm really looking forward now to bouncing back from this poor performance and a rubbish sprint race on saturday to get that mojo back to find a good rhythm through the rest of this winter (Aussie summer) block. As ever, you can follow this progress on my AP, strava or other links on the side. Check back again for the next instalment.