3k on the Green

Results | Event website

I’d heard much about the 3k on the Green from John Denovan’s blow by blow accounts.

It sounded like the strategy was to start as fast as humanly possible, and then hang on.

Much like any other race then, albeit condensed into 10 fun-filled minutes.

The assembled throng gathered under McLennan’s Arch for the 12:30 lunchtime kick-off.

I duly set off almost as fast as I could, but thinking I would settle on the shoulders of the front runners.  But no such thing happened. The front runners were immediately powering away out of contention, and I was floundering along in about 7th or 8th place.  I tried to retain some sort of form after gutting myself for the first 500 metres, thinking I might be able to start reeling a few places back.

It was kind of a strange feeling to be running as fast as possible, but also looking for an angle on how to speed up rather than slowing down. Quite counter-intuitive.  Anyhow, I just about caught the runner ahead (Calum McVie) at the turn, where I got a shout from my V50 nemesis Dave Thom on marshalling duties. 

After the turn I made my move to pass Calum, but I was on the outside of the curve on the tree-rooted footpath, and my added effort wasn’t quite enough to get by, so I waited another minute or 2 until until we got to the blue pedestrian bridge, and then I put in my final charge to try to run down Steven Prentice who was the next runner ahead.  In the final 50 metres the gap started to come down, but nowhere near quickly enough to catch Steven, but it was just enought to get a time of 9:59, so was pleased enough to scrape under 10 minutes by probably less than a second.

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.