A guy I know locally had let me know about an organized mile race put on by Medway & Maidstone AC, as part of a mass participation mile even that happened afterwards. I entered Friday week gone and was accepted into the C race.
There were 4 races, mixed C race (mine with runners under 6min for the mile) mixed B race, runners around 5mins for the mile, Elite women’s A race, Elite mens A race.
I’ve done no specific mile training recently, I’m 4 weeks into training for a 5k track race end of August. I ran a mile race last year off around 2 weeks specific mile training un the middle of another block. This led me to then race awfully, going out far too hard and dying horribly on the 3rd lap as I got walloped by the lactate train, finishing in 5:22.
So with this in mind I approached the race with a more cautious mindset.
I had 2 things I was going to work on. Firstly feel for the race and wanted to gauge roughly were I was mile wise, so in Tuesday last week ran 8 x 200m @ 40sec off 60sec walk to see if 5:20 was a realistic target. I also wanted to be aware of the feel / effort. This seemed to be a good pace guide and I knew what this felt like. Secondly I knew I was never going to run a PB (which is 5:12 from 5 years ago) so was going to use the race to race. I had no idea who else was running until I got the confirmation email last Weds, day before, so had no idea what I would have around me in terms of runners. What was important here was mentally preparing myself to run with other runners if need be, but not get carried away in terms of pace based on what I was able to run, so I could manage the 3rd lap effectively and push on for the last lap.
Day of the race I’d had a really, really exhausting day teaching supply to a class of very disengaged and challenging Y6 children (1 particular highlight being a Y6 child quietly responding to another adult “fuck off you old cunt”, unaware I was in hearing distance). So mentally I was pretty drained by the end of the day, 3:15. with the race starting at 6:30. I got home and knew I needed to do something to shift the mental fatigue and get me in the right place to race – a power nap for 15 minutes helped. As did my wife coming along to watch and drive me the hour to get to the track.
We got to the track @ 5:45, enough time to collect my number, do a 10minute brief easy run, followed by a caffeine gel at 6:15, knowing it would kick in during the race. I then did some leg swings & breath hold accelerations to get my system on / up.
Time hit 6:30, we got called to the line & the adrenaline was definitely ramping up. There was a pretty big crowd, as the event itself has around 2000 participants for the mass mile.
There was around 12 in the race and when the gun went off I was in the lead, lane 1 for the first 200. I’d settled into just a little faster than my goal pace, with a guy who took the lead @ 200m and a girl sitting on my shoulder. I settled into what I was running, let the guy ahead move a little away and told myself to relax and enjoy the race. First lap was in 80, so knew that I didn’t need to do anything different. around 600m the girl behind me passed me and again I was happy to let her pass and sat on her shoulder.
Second lap in 2m 43m, which felt good coming into the lactate lap. Got to 1k and went back past the girl who had passed me and knew I could push on for the last lap. Waited for the bell and then begun to pick up the pace until I caught the guy in the lead with about 240m to go. Rather than go past I decided to sit on his shoulder, have a brief breather and save myself for the race in the straight. As we rounded the final bend I pulled out into lane 2 and pushed, as did the guy in front and he pulled open a gap of around 2m. I kept pushing, as did he and I thought by 60m to go I just didn’t quite have enough. However from somewhere inside of me, with about 30m to go I found that little extra, enough to let me push on and over those last 30m I caught him with a dip for the line. Photo finish and I really wasn’t sure who had won. The announcer had a brief chat with me – he thought I’d just nicked it and the image above then proved it:
The time was 5:18’97 – a win by 3 hundredths of a second and 3 sec quicker than last year. The race was really satisfying & enjoyable. Not going out too hard, settling and then racing made a massive difference. When I finished I knew I’d raced as smart and as well as I possibly could, so in the brief time before I found out the result I was really happy with what had happened. The win was the icing on the cake – and made nicer by the fact the guy who came second ran a PB.
If you’re going to win a race, winning in that fashion was incredibly satisfying. Equally I doubt I will ever be in another race where I am in a photo finish, that is so close.
