The try-out

With just under a month to the County FA's filter fitness test to decide who gets assessed and who doesn't, it was time to see how close I could get to the required distance of 2500m in 12 minutes.

I'd prepared a soundtrack for my run lining up the following

Born Slippy - Underground (4m 21s)
Firestarter - The Prodigy (3m 47s)
Don't Stop Me Now - Queen (3m 32s)
Teenage Kicks - The Undertones (2m 27s)

By the end of the first track I needed to have completed my first 2 laps, plus the 100m straight if possible. By the end of the second track, I needed to have completed just over 4 laps. By the end of the third track, I needed to be heading down the home straight towards the finish line, if I was to complete the full distance in the allowed time.

Bearing in mind the furthest I had ever run in 12 minutes was 2120m and that was in the filter test last year when I was running for fun, I was under no illusions that the full distance was probably beyond me tonight.

Fat Lad was there to encourage me and Paulie was there to act as my pacemaker to keep me on track against the times set out above. I started my music and got underway after about 10 seconds meaning I already had some time to catch up. I hit the first lap in 1m 48s, the second completed at 3m 40s, so things were looking on track.

I had lost track of Paulie and totally wrapped in my music I just wanted to keep running as hard as I could but I had started to lose time. I was on 6m 33s at 1300m, 8m 49s at 1700m and 11m 10s at 2100m. I had "lost" around 35s in 2 laps and I obviously can't afford to do that at the test. I tried to raise my pace again but as Fat Lad joined me at the 2100m mark I only had about 50s left, meaning the 5th lap had taken 2m 21s. I put the last 50s to good effect and ran out another 150m finishing at 2250, a full 130m past my previous best.

Analysing the run, I was spot on for pace after 2 laps, I was still close to the pace after the third lap and 100m (about 5s out). So the loss came over lap 4 and 5, before picking things up again on lap 6. I took almost 2 minutes to get my breathing back under control after collapsing at the side of the track, even so my soundtrack helped with that.

So it's back to the drawing board on the track. In effect I have to find 125m on each of laps 4 and 5 or if it's spread over the whole run, then I need to find 21m in each minute. Sounds easy enough to do. On Tuesday, we'll give it another go and again the following Friday when I'll have just 2 weeks to the test.