While other sane people were spending their Friday evening doing their best to stay cool or take part in activities more appropriate for the sweltering weather, I and bunch of other crazies decided we'd all get together at the track down in London and see how much we could make ourselves sweat after twelve and a half laps inside TD Waterhouse Stadium.
Which is to say Liam and I went ahead with running the 5000, despite the humidex still being reported at around 37 Celsius when we toed the line at 9:20 PM.
To be frank, it wasn't the most pleasurable racing experience I've ever had. The first kilometre was hit right on schedule- a 3:05 with Liam sitting in behind that was bang on from the first 200. Happy to hit the first checkpoint relatively comfortably, I stopped listening for splits and worked on maintaining the same effort level. Based on my experience last year, I was hoping difficulties wouldn't arise until passing through 3k.
"6:16! 6:17!" I still have no idea how it happened, but somehow 3:05 morphed into 3:10+ as we hit 2K. Knowing I couldn't increase my tempo, I checked out racing for time at that point and tried to hold my position. I put a gap on Liam near the halfway point and from there on it was a solo effort in no man's land until Matt Brunsting lapped me with 500 m to go.
I crossed the line in 15:52. How much was the heat worth, and how would an extra 50 miles a week leading up to it benefited me? I can only wonder. On a positive note, my IT band had been hurting all day leading up the race, but wasn't impacted once I had my spikes on.
Running history video of the week: Joan Benoit winning the 1984 Olympic Marathon. The time she ran in the Los Angeles heat is still the Olympic record. To take the lead 14 minutes into a marathon and hold it for the next 2 hours+? Incredible.
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