3000m in Jyväskylä/FIN: 9:09,02min (second to last, but still 1st place)

May 26, 2009

Another pedestrian performance (in my eyes).

I only learnt about the race 2 days ago, so my coach and me decided to run this 3.000m track race instead of the planned workout on Wednesday. Only 3 participants toed the line, so the there was almost no competition. However, Mari Järvenpää was in the race and before the race her coach somehow convinced me to make pace for her in the first km. Actually, I was trying to go for the 9-minutes mark, i.e. 3:00min-pace but since they asked me so kindly and Mari wanted to run a fast time (3:05min splits) I agreed. So I started the first km in 3:05, the second kilometer was actually the fastest with 3:01 and the last one was 3:03. The aggressiveness was missing, so I couldn’t even finish strongly – the last round was only 72sec or something like that.

The best performance of the race was of course Mari’s performance of 9:34,88 min which was a seasonal best for Finland.

For me it was nothing but a better training and a dissapointment. I mean, my 10K PB is 30:04min and last year I ran 30:34min. So 9:09min is like the split time for a 30:30min 10K! Even with a lot of kilometers (170+180 per week for the last two weeks) I should be able to run at least 9 minutes.