Race Report: Christleton 5k 18/05/2012

I was the lone Strider at the Christleton 5k.

I arrived, with plenty of time to spare at the race car park at Chester Law School. It was
clearly very careful about everything it does. There were no potholes, the turf was mown in perfect stripes and a blanket coverage of CCTV cameras in the car park. I don't know what they will have made of runners urinating in their flower beds, but no doubt they are draughting the court summons as we speak.

It turned out that the car park was 2km from the start line. Some would consider that covering 8k for the price of a 5k race is good value. It did present a bit of a dilemma about what to do with my kit.

Now you would have thought I was well warmed up by the time I got to the start line. You thought wrong. I couldn't extend my left knee. I tried walking, running, jumping, sprinting and every stretch I know (and then some). Nothing shifted it. Thankfully, just as the starting gun went, something clicked in my knee and it was comfortable again.
I would like to say I shot off like a coiled spring. Unfortunately I felt like Liz McColgon being overtaken by the Kenyans in the last lap of a 10k. Like a basset hound in a greyhound race. Like the athlete from Easter Island in the first heat of the Olympic 100m. Like Force India.

The race was 2 laps of a pleasant rural course, with two passages through the village centre. It took me a while to get going, I ran 2 decent kilometres, then ran out of puff.
Half marathons worry me, so having done the Chester Half the previous Sunday, all my training had been focused on that.  So 5k was a bit of a shock to the system! Given the lack of preparation, I was surprised to finish 5secs outside my PB (in 21:38). This suggests one of two things, either

a) my PB is rubbish; or
b) I ran quicker than I thought

No photos of jazz hands I'm afraid, since I was on my own and the camera was 1km away in the car.  

For more information visit the race website.

Tom