Go Hard

With all my years of running, I would I don't have much experience on the track, and 5000m definitely hasn't ever been a feature. At the end of last year I was struggling to find any sort of speed in my legs. To find the improvements I wanted, the 5000m was the perfect event to put me out of my comfort zone. From all around Australia and from New Zealand, across the various emergency services 33 lined up on the blue at Lakeside Stadium . In my Ambulance Victoria colours I felt as ready as I could be. There was clearly a vast range of abilities and it was too hard to tell pre-race who would be at the pointy end. I was happy to see fellow ambo and semi-regular rival Mark Clarence in the mix. We all crowded the start line, but once the gun sounded the spaces opened up immediately. Looks like my recent training had dialled in the pace and I moved through the first 1000m right on 3:36 as planned. This was my opening bench mark, setting up a reasonable first kilometre and allowin...

That hard, confidence building session. That fast and long set of intervals. The run that leaves you destroyed for the rest of the day, but once done you know  you are ready to race. They are planned ahead of time. On paper they look deceivingly simply, almost easy. You know there is a lot more behind the numbers, an x , a /, and an @ . When training is going very well you look forward to these runs with an almost insatiable appetite. When it isn't going quite as well these runs come with a sense of trepidation. Of course you don't have to match what is on paper. That is just a guide. A starting point. The essence of these sessions is to push your limits in a training context. You can try to predict those limits, but you don't know them for sure if you don't go past them. Sometimes, if you are lucky you surpass your prediction and you don't have to put the limit to a test. This is when you know you are ready. Other times, you fall well short of those predictions. My...