An ‘OK’ result I suppose, but I wasn’t as quick as I had hoped to be for the such favourable conditions (pretty much perfect!). I started off pretty sensibly and let the group ahead (Jake, Adam, someone Firth) shoot off – kept them in my sights and dug in to a reasonable steady sub-3:50 pace. At half-way I was on track, exactly 5s quicker than the Spring 5k, but started losing speed in that horrible 3rd and 4th kms. Managed to hold it in the last km but didn’t have anything left for a quick finish. I was trying to catch Adam at least as he looked like he was struggling but just didn’t have anything in me to push harder. Kieran was ~10s behind me so no real pressure from the rear (kept checking of course!). Nick said I looked too relaxed when we passed each other, that I lacked drive. Might be right! I pushed myself fairly hard during Efforts on the Tuesday and had very sore quads, foolishly I went and did the 60min easy run on the Wednesday and my quads were aching until Sat (so missed 2nd S&C session, strides and 2nd easy run that week) – it was tough enough walking the dog. Gig Saturday meant it was a long tiring day, didn’t sleep that well either (didn’t want to get out of bed) so I think I just didn’t have the drive in me on race day. I’m really happy to see so many PBs, especially Jake totally smashing his record (I was going to try catching him but he kept getting quicker as was racing the Firth guy head-to-head!) but feel like I did let myself down somewhat. I definitely hadn’t trained for speed so that’s a consideration, but I did think I was fitter than in Spring. I must admit, I felt fine after, whereas those who pushed hard were suffering a little… that’s a good sign that I could have pushed harder I guess. Got an extra 5 championship points (I think) so the gap is smaller now…