That's about the point where I lost them.
Well I gave it a shot on Saturday and was pretty disappointed with the result. I had trained hard, I'd missed a few of the longer runs on the plan but never missed a speed session weight went up and down but on the morning I was heading in 4 Kilograms lighter than the earlier attempt.
Dom Horan had offered to pace so we did a good warm up and I'd say I was feeling confident enough. Shanganagh is a 1k lap then two laps of 2k. I figured if I just targeted to make sure I was still with Dom at 3k then I'd be able to hang on for the final 2k lap. First 1k seemed incredibly easy. The last time I did it I ran 4:20 for the first k and I was hammered felt like I'd nothing left. This time I felt like we had gone too easy but no we were bang on time.
Then I'd say at about 1.3k you start to go downhill a little to me it seemed like the pace had just suddenly picked up. Stayed with them but knew I was going into the red here and wouldn't last that long. Watch beeped for 2k and I was like 4:02 then the pace group started to drift away to about 10 meters ahead of me I tried hard to get back on but they remained at 10k for about 2 minutes than started to drift further and further ahead.
My 3k split came up 4:28 which was a real kick in the nuts cause that was a big drop off in the pace. I couldn't get the pace back at all and finished on 4:27 for the 4k then 4:26 for the final k.
To try and take the positives out of it. I did manage to knock over a minute off my time I'd set the previous 8 weeks. I know I was doing better in training than that time suggests. I'm really disappointed in my time. I thought I was going to run somewhere between best case 19:20 or if I had a bad race 21 minutes would be the worst. In training I had run 7:58 for 2k on the day I ran 8:04 and felt wrecked doing it. Normally I am 10% better in a race than training.
I'd love to continue on training for a 5k but I have signed up for an Ironman and the bike is by far my weakest discipline so I've got to start back cycling. I'm not giving up on the 5k in fact I will give it a go around Christmas but the blog is done for the moment.
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