track

I was feeling sick, tired and weak when I got to Potts Field for a key final track workout before heading to England for the British Championship 5k for Old Gits who Really Should Know Better.

OK, so I overdid it; I admit it.

I was tired, too tired, going into Friday's track session. We adjusted the workout accordingly, but then I felt a little warning twinge in my left hamstring. I jogged it out. Then, on my final 400m, I was on pace for 72 seconds when right on 300m I got a much more insistent twinge and stepped off the track.

It's hard to get your workouts in on the road. I'm in Durango, almost as far south-west as you can get in Colorado and stay "civilised". That's in quotes because this area still has that frontier, mountain man feel. Abby and I are celebrating our wedding annivesary with a road trip to Mesa Verde, the astounding World Heritage site where the Anastazi Indians built pueblos into ledges on inaccessible sandstone cliffs.

No, not quite what you expect to hear, especially at my age chasing a sub-5 mile and super-fast 5k.

What Ric means is I need to make sure my easy runs are...easy. And yes, the pace has been creeping up again. Even on Sunday's run at Magnolia and especially over the last couple of days, I've been finishing them at a brisk pace. I do start slow, but then finish as if they are tempo runs.

The result: feel-good on the trail; dead-ish legs when I get to the track for my quality workouts.

There are Three Desires I have about any race or time trial I go for. The first desire is to hit the time that will get the job done. The second is the time that I would feel really pleased with. The third is the secret time that, in my heart, I really really want to hit: a time that would constitute at the very least, a breakthrough.

I had all three desires in place for my 3200k time trial -- 8 laps, or two miles. Getting under 12 minutes would merit "Job done". 11:45-ish would be a real boost. "Secretly" I was hoping for something even faster.

The last workout. No, I'm not retiring; it's just the last one I can fit in before getting on the plane to London for me annual-ish business schmooze trip.

My 5k race times are improving; I also did a confidence-boosting 800m time trial in 2:35 on the road... but the last two workouts have been bad. Or so I thought.

I had a horrible feeling about the Oatmeal 5k on Saturday, mainly because Lafayette is already filling up with Quaker Oats marketing banners and blow-up giant oaty things. Suppose I've got this all wrong? Maybe it's an actual oatmeal EATING race: we have to stop every half mile and eat a bowlful. Maybe there's a feeding station at halfway, and we all have eat porridge?

"Feed a cold and starve a fever" they say.

Strange that even though I thought the lack of exercise and feeling generally blah would kill my appetite, the reverse has happened. I've been scoffing solidly for two days and, miraculously, am starting to feel better.

So much so that I revisited the scene of my crimes last week -- yes at last I got back to the track. Took a VERY easy two-mile warm-up jog/run up and down the slopes round the lake. For some reason my left Achilles has been screaming at me all day, but as I warmed up, so did it, and I was fine.

Well, that wasn't fun!

Having failed with Plan A, which involved getting up at 5am to make the start of the Evergreen Town Race, I decided to wait until the evening cool and hit the track for a follow-up to last-week's "therapy" session.