John Carr Race 3 (well, Race 1 for me...)

Finally managed to make the final race of the John Carr 5ks last night, having watched my clubmates knocking out great times for a fortnight - and unfortunately knew from the start it wasn't going to be a great night.  Legs were still really heavy from Sunday's 110 miler, and just felt in need of a rest.  A few desultory strides to try and get some speed up but just felt lethargic and crap.

Set off and tried to stay in touch with Richard.  Then Henry. Then Steve. Then Mark.  However I was quickly 30 yards down and within half a k wishing it was over.  1st k was 3:24, but it's downhill, so the second at 3:38 was just about on my normal pace - however I was already slowing.  3rd and 4th in 3:49 and 3:52, which is slower than 10k pace, although at least Mark Iley had the decency to slow down and give me something to chase, and I did actually pass him on the climb back up.  In the last k I was with a group of about 4 runners, with one guy making a break for home.  Normally I'd have tried to go with him, but the "can't be arsed" feeling was still there and I sat back and waited, thinking I'd maybe try and summon up a sprint right at the end.

I did manage a barely perceptible acceleration at the death, and came in 47th in 18:02 - which is a lot closer to my PB of 17:54 than I felt like I was running, but disappointing all the same as I know I could run a lot quicker on fresh legs - and of course it's the last race of the series.  Having put it into Fetch it shows as a WAVA score of 79.86%, so respectable without being quite what I hoped for.

I really think I need a week without any big endurance sapping efforts, and also to get back to some speedwork and structure.  It's all been effort/recover since Blackpool, so I think a weekend with a gentle bike ride and maybe a 7 or 8 mile easy run is what's called for.