Waking up on race day with about 6 hours to wait till my race at 1.20pm. All I did was lounge around on the couch at the motel in Timaru, watching T.V, trying to conserve energy and relax myself. It was a very boring few hours, waiting for the race, but that’s just what happens. I had prepared as much as I could, apart from my back injury a few weeks back, I had not missed a training session, and had done almost all of them up to the speeds I wanted to. This made me feel a bit relieved, knowing that I had done a good build up getting there.
Warming up with just under a hour to go, my body felt good and relaxed, “Race ready”. I went and did my strides 20 mins before the race and all my technique drills to fire all my legs up and get them sparking and ready. Ten minutes left we all had to go to the starting line and get ready to race. The whole field of 220 athletes all getting their spikes on and doing race starts to get themselves ready. Just 1 minute to go my heart was pounding now getting ready for the starters gun.
“Bang” We were off. The ground shakes as 220 athletes dart off the line to get in front. I’m sitting around 70th place as I got squished and then moved down to about 100th. “Come on!” I told myself. I weaved my way through the pack using more energy than I would of liked to, and got myself up into about 30th position. By then it was the second lap and the front pack had gained at least 30 seconds on me. I had to slow down I could not keep the 3:00 min/km pace up any longer, otherwise I would have had to stop.
Last lap, everybody is going for it I had moved into a group and was coming 24th, were I wanted to be. Last kilometre. I was tiring rapidly, there was group of 6 a step in front of me and another 4 on my tail.
The final 400m I got passed by a few guys, and I try to stay with them but am unsuccessful, and they get the better of me. I finish strong, but slightly annoyed.
I had a great race in the individuals as I made a lot of ground and was fairly happy with my result and how the race went, (except the start).
Next week I will discuss what I learnt from this race and what I can take into my next race and beyond.
Cheers Coach Ray for all the training and helping me towards my goal/s.
Luke Clatworthy (Clatters Chatter)
View last weeks article below:
https://www.strava.com/activities/2459272094
All Luke’s previous articles can be found here:
https://www.coachray.nz/category/client-stories/clatters-chatter/