Saturday 7 January 2012

short story of the 10k

Posted by speedygeoff on Saturday, January 07, 2012 with
Never did get the hang of 10k. Ran some good Canberra Times Fun Runs, the fastest being 32:14 as an M40, although my best was probably a 30:30 run in the Fun Run years earlier when it was only 6 miles and not 10k. Before I ever ran 10k on the track, I decided to prepare for some track 10ks by going to the grass track at ANU, next to the Sports Centre, in the days when there was a full 8-lane athletics track there, sadly no longer since the demise of athletics at our tertiary institutions. I ran some timed 10k time trials over a few weeks; 25 full laps of the track; just to get a feel for the event, and knowing that dress rehearsals were the way to go. Then over the next few years, I did race some 10ks; 34 mins, 33 mins, finally 32 mins plus. My 10k PB though was an odd one; at the age of 35, that summer I joined a gym, worked on upper body and lower body strength, and managed to develop a sore lower back with sciatica. So I rested up a bit, then went in a Vets 10k track race on 22/3/84, which being an ACTVAC event had a large field of slow runners. That's where I managed a PB of 31:59.3 - actually 31:57 on my watch - in a race where, way in the lead of course, I multi-lapped so many of the runners, that at one stage I remember going four wide on a bend around runners lapping other runners. I would have run well over-distance. On the plus side, this was the only race in 50 years where I have felt as if my legs and knees were coming up effortlessly with each step, a result of the lunges and half squats I had been doing in the gym. I remember having trouble with pins and needles in one foot during the race, a legacy of the sciatica and back problems. Not many Vets run that sort of time now: do today's runners train hard enough if they are serious about improving? Anyway, like the 5k and the marathon, the 10k was yet another event where I knew I could go a lot faster but it never happened.

Pictures speak lauda than words

Every second driver in Canberra this week thinks our roads are raceways. I wish they'd go away.