Regents Park 10K - February

Oh I wasn't looking forward to today that's for sure. I had to race because I want to complete the series (and as of today I'm 5 for 5) but I wasn't looking forward to starting knowing that I'm sub-par let alone finishing. So to avoid any last-minute doubt, and ensure plenty of warm-up time, I left earlier than usual and headed down to Regents Park. Once there I set off quite gingerly for a warm-up lap and, surprisingly, didn't feel all that terrible. This happy feeling persisted all the way until the start and I did start to wonder (hope?) if I could maintain my sub-40 minute record. Well let the record (of kilometre splits) show that this was never an option:

 

Not a single sub-4 minute kilometre to be seen! Even worse I felt that, subjectively, my performance improved over the course of the race whereas the reality is that I managed an alright 5K in the middle but faded badly towards the end. So much for intuition but what I really want to know is just how my back injury could have such a dramatic slowing effect? It's not as if my legs or lungs feel directly affected but clearly they are and I think that there are two factors at play here:

1. Because my lower back is tight it's hard to straighten up fully and I reckon that this stops me raising my legs properly - which subtly reduces my stride length. It may only be a few centimetres but over the course of a race this all adds up.
2. Along with my back my hamstrings are tighter than usual and today it felt like I was having to work against this resistance to run well - so more energy than usual is being wasted on stretching out my muscles with every stride.

Put these two problems together and you end up with a race time well outside 40 minutes and around 10% slower than my PB set last November.  That's one heck of a drop in performance and right now I can't help wondering if I'll get it all back because my form has really been rocky over the last three months. On the other hand this anecdotal evidence just reinforces my belief in the power of stretching as a force for good; the only problem now is working out whether or not I need to add some core stability work too! Why is life so complicated?

Finally the race results will be here when published: February Results

Distance: 10.8 miles

Time: 1h 21m 02s