The Golden Mile.. Consisted of two laps around the town centre of Queenstown. The atmosphere was really buzzing and the streets were filled with spectators. Not having done any speed work with months and only really racing longer distances I wasn't expecting much in the race but thought 'Why Not?!' I had nothing too loose but gain a 1 mile personal best.
I had put up on my Twitter and Facebook page the couple of days before that I was racing and for poeple to predict my finishing time. I wasn't really sure what time I was capable of running and figured it would be a good laugh to see what others thought I could do. The predictions what come in had a huge range between the times.. The quickest at 4:35 - 6:20, I was hoping I could run around 5:10-5:15 to be honest but wasn't sure how the legs would cope.
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| Otago Daily Times newspaper shot of the start.. |
Race morning soon came around and after heading into town and collecting our numbers. I wasn't feeling great but legs felt fresh! (For a change) Midday soon come and we were off, I had decided to go with the tactic of go off hard and hold on for as long as possible. How hard can it be to sprint a mile right? I couldn't of been more wrong!! Off went the gun and the front line shot off like we were racing a 100m.. I dropped into the second little group behind the 3 leaders. Our group was 4th,5th,6th,7th I figured it would be to try and hold onto this group for as long as possible and then try make a move towards the end if my legs had anything left. As we approached the final 200 meters on lap one it had a slight up hill section and our group had just slowed a fraction and the leading group was now 2 athletes. I decided that if I was going to go it was now! I just upped the pace for 15 seconds what gave me just enough to over take and put a little distance on the second group of runners and just managed to catch the leading 2 runners, but by doing this I now didn't actually have much left in the legs. Half way round the second lap the leading running decided to break and push on for the win neither myself or the second runner had enough to go with me. On the same incline as the first lap I tried to see if I had anything left to try for 2nd but the 2nd place runner had much more in his tank and held me off really well to finish 2nd and myself 3rd over the line. In a time of 4:51! I was very surprised to see when I looked down at my watch to see the time of 4:51. According to my gps the course measured out at 1.03 and my mile time was 4:46 but I am very happy with my official time at 4:51, and 3rd overall.
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| Top 3 overall results.. |
Would I race a one mile race again? In a strange way I think I would. I would like to maybe race the distance over a quicker course of just one lap and less tight corners. Overall I was glad I took the chance to race it and was pleased to see I still have some speed.. Well it's speed for me!
Thanks to everyone for reading and following..
Paul x
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