"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Filton Flyer 5k Race, April 2018

I'm not sure why I've had a winter punctuated by so many colds and coughs - it can't be overtraining, that's for sure! But having come back from the USA with a heavy cold I knew my first run out of the "Summer" was going to be a get-round job rather than an attempt on a decent time. Last year at the excellent Aztec West Fast 5k I'd managed a couple of times under 20 minutes, one of them close to 19, but the word at Race HQ was that in its new incarnation, relocated to Abbey Wood as the Filton Flyer, the race was not so flat and not so fast.

Conditions were not perfect either - breezy and wet with temperatures in single figures!

I was expecting and hoping for a time under 20 minutes but a glance at my splits (From K2 chip timing - pasted at the bottom of the page) show I was never on pace for that.

I was consciously holding back on the effort for the first k, but by the end of the 2-and-a-bit lap course I was dead slow on the upslopes and giving it a full race effort without generating much speed on the downs. In the end I was 7th out of 9 in the 45-50 grouping but if I'd been 6 weeks older I'd have been first of 3 in the 50-55 slot. That gives me hope for a result if I come back after my 50th on June 5th and get in good enough shape to race those other over 50s. Of course, there may be a much bigger turnout in my category by then!

My overall feeling in this race, despite the slow time, was of the sheer joy of getting back out there and giving it full (or nearly full) gas. A little pain in my left foot during and some soreness in my right calf afterwards have left me wondering if I'll be able to string 2 or more races together without some kind of rehab in between, but if it all settles down I might just be able to make this monthly 5k - after all it's my local event just a mile from my house. It was a very friendly event - running always feels the most egalitarian and democratic of sports, as there's not much in the way of equipment and you can't "buy" a faster time as you could with a few grand in your pocket in the cycling world. It was just 50 odd people giving it max effort on a cycle/footpath around the MOD campus - you can't beat that for simplicity of form. That's the perfection of it.

00:04:02
00:04:03
00:04:22
00:04:07
00:04:17

Sacred Steps Home