It took me a year after I moved to Western Mass, but I eventually found the Northampton Cross Country Series, a weekly 5k held (then) 26-times every year from April through September on a tough but fair little dirt course. (Now in its 30th year, Don and Sue Grant are local heroes-- thanks you two!!) I've run it 20 times since 2008- sometimes fresh, sometimes exhausted, in many weather conditions, off of marathon training, cross country training, and trail/mountain training. I've always run it fairly hard. I made a half concerted effort to make the all-time top 10 list and another weaker effort recently to get an age record; both attempts failed. Damn all those fast people who have shown up over the years! (Including our local Kenyan and our local World Champs bronze medalist.) And damn the +10 second course addition they made a few years ago! But who's bitter? Not this old-ish and slow-ish guy...
Excepting the first time, when I got lost, I've run all 20, under all of these different conditions, within a 44-second range. I find this really interesting so, after running my slowest time ever this week, I made a little infographic to investigate the possible relationships between the various kinds of training I've done and the 5k XC times I was able to produce. I think it speaks for itself.
Still only 45 sec slower than your best, I bet if you wanted to you could get it back in 3 weeks.
ReplyDeleteYou flatter, and you overestimate the state of my hamstrings. It's all quads now, baby.
Delete