On the 5th February, I took part in the local Alsager 5. I ran this race for the first time last year and despite some really windy weather, I came home under 30 minutes (just) with a 29:45… Alsager 5 2022 Race Recap

Like last year, I was using this race as a hard threshold session as part of my spring marathon training.

Having dipped under 30 minutes on a windy day last year, I felt quietly confident in at least repeating that and maybe pushing under 29 minutes.

This year, my spring marathon is a couple of weeks later so my training is 2 weeks behind this stage last year but has been going well and the speed sessions have been improving week on week.

Splits: 5:48, 5:42, 5:45, 5:41, 5:48

As ever, I didn’t really back myself when lining up at the start. I never feel confident enough to go too far up to the front as I know I will be some way off the winner’s pace.

This usually means I start further back than I probably should and today was just the same. I spent the majority of the first-mile weaving passed runners and trying to find some space to run at my own pace.

My goal was to run at 5:45/mi which would bring me home in just under 29 minutes. I had been in two minds about whether to run at 5k pace and try to hang on for the last 1.9 miles or play it safe and go out at 10k pace and look to pick it up in the second half. In the end, that 5:45/mi pace meets in the middle ground between 5k and 10k pace and felt doable.

That first mile was slower than my goal by 3 seconds. To be honest, I was surprised to see it only 3secs short, I had done a lot of dodging around and it had felt quite leisurely, a promising sign for the next 4 miles or about to be hit with a dose of humble pie?

I had made up those 3 seconds in the second mile having found some space and chasing down those running at a similar pace ahead. Mile 3 was much of the same and bang on the 5:45/mi target so 3/5 miles done and right on target for a sub 29.

Right about now was when I started to wonder if I had pushed too hard and was about to suffer or had I paced it well enough to kick on over these last 2 miles.

Pretty sure you can guess what I went for, I pushed the pace on mile 4 and tried to kick on running my fastest split of the race dipping 4 seconds under my goal pace. The last mile is mostly down one straight road but then has two 90-degree turns in the last quarter mile. Looking at the pace on Garmin, I dropped around 5 seconds on those two turns. I am not sure if that is just GPS catching up with a direction change or fatigued legs slowing for a turn but the last mile was the same split as mile 1 so not a disaster.

I crossed the line in 29:07 averaging 5:45/mi, giving me a course and 5 mile PB beating last year’s time by 38 seconds. Officially I missed out on a sub 29min 5 mile.

After the race, I felt good about holding 5:45/mi for 5 miles and gained a big confidence boost that I could try to hold that kind of pace over 10k which would give me a solid 2-minute 10k PB.

Later that evening I felt really really rough. Tired, and achy, my head hurt and I could barely move. I took a COVID test to be on the safe side and that came back positive so looks like I had run that race with COVID symptoms just kicking in.

This ended up taking me out of the Wrexham Half Marathon a week later. I had chest pains for about 3 weeks and struggled to catch my breath when running at any kind of pace, this has massively impacted the marathon build up but I guess is now just one of those things you have to contend with.