Tonbridge Open Track Race

Yesterday Lucy put on the forum that she was going to the Tonbridge Open Track meeting and asked if anyone else wanted to go. So I took up her offer and joined Lucy and Dave to Tonbridge.  When arriving, the facilities were amazing they had everything on offer for all sports as well as athletics.  It turns out that Tonbridge is going to be the training camp for the Australians for the Olympics.

I wasn't sure what races to enter as I haven't been on the track this year, what I did know I didn't really fancy doing loads of laps around the track.  So I decided to enter the 1 mile race with Lucy which is 4 laps around the track and thought that would be enough.  When entering we had to enter our estimated time, so I put down 8 minutes.  They do this, so your running with people who are at the same pace.  On this occasion there wasn't enough people so we all ran together.  Lucy and I were the only adults in this race I believe. We were running against girls as young as 14/15 years, half my age!!  So we stood in line and set off at the sound of the gun. We were running against the wind and it was raining.  The younger ones soon pulled away and I got lapped. It was tough running, I am not used to running short distances, going flat out pretty much.  The girl who won was Bobby, she has won all her races including national level. So I was running with girls who are super quick.  What was very nice, Bobby came over and shook my hand which was very sweet. I was last over the line. I later learnt from Lucy that was the done thing to do at track.

It was the first time I had run in my track shoes, had no problems and were absolutely fine.

Lucy said that she was considering doing the 3000m. I knew I certainly didn't want to run that far, mentally that seems running for miles around the running track. In my head it seems further than running all those miles I do on the road. In the end Lucy decided against it, she felt a little niggle and didn't want to push it.

I decided to run another race, 600m, which is a lap and a half.  I hadn't a clue what time to put down for this race, so Lucy and Dave guessed at 2.30minutes. This time the race was split depending on speed. It was tough again in the wind and rain. It was over quite quick.

Time for 1 mile 7.25.42
600m around 2.30