Indoor Championships.

Instead of the usual cross country races I normally run I decided to have a go at the Northern Indoor 3000 metre championships at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Having never run on an indoor track and never raced over 3km it was just a matter of seeing what I could do. My aim was to try and get under 8 minutes 50 seconds but I would need to be in top form to do that so hitting 9 minutes would be more of a reasonable challenge. With so little quality training due to the weather and being in no mans land at the moment whilst waiting to start my Marathon training I had no idea what so ever of what shape I was in. The race started at a fast pace and I was about 6th by the end of the first kilometre which I did in around 2 minutes 50 seconds by the end of the 2nd kilometre I had dropped back to eighth with a time of 5 minutes 48 seconds so getting under 9 minutes was still on, the only problem was the gas tank was draining that fast there would be no chance of any gas being left by the end of the race. I staggered round the final kilometre and started to find the bank curves awkward and finally finished in 9 minutes 13 seconds in 9th place. Ohhhh that hurt, my lungs and heart are still on fire. I suppose I was slightly disheartened with my time but at the end of the day it was only a bit of fun and now I have a time to beat next time. Having never run on an indoor track before I would highly recommend it. The quality of the competition is unbelievable at all distances and having the chance to spectate before and after your race just makes it even better, especially with the commentator keeping you informed all the time of each race and the runners involved.
Having checked my 3km time on a race for race chart my half marathon time next week should be 1 hour 14 minutes. That's about 5 minutes off my best so surely I can't be that much slower, I will soon find out though. I have a deep feeling of wanting to set really fast race times but I know at the moment I should just be taking these races as they come and not to bother too much with my times .
Now it's time to surf the net to see what I can have ago at next, I must admit I did like the look of the Indoor 200 metres which involved running just one lap of the track.