Never did get the hang of 10k. Ran some good Canberra Times Fun Runs, the fastest being 32:14 as an M40, although my best was probably a 30:30 run in the Fun Run years earlier when it was only 6 miles and not 10k. Before I ever ran 10k on the track, I decided to prepare for some track 10ks by going to the grass track at ANU, next to the Sports Centre, in the days when there was a full 8-lane athletics track there, sadly no longer since the demise of athletics at our tertiary institutions. I ran some timed 10k time trials over a few weeks; 25 full laps of the track; just to get a feel for the event, and knowing that dress rehearsals were the way to go. Then over the next few years, I did race some 10ks; 34 mins, 33 mins, finally 32 mins plus. My 10k PB though was an odd one; at the age of 35, that summer I joined a gym, worked on upper body and lower body strength, and managed to develop a sore lower back with sciatica. So I rested up a bit, then went in a Vets 10k track race on 22/3/84, which being an ACTVAC event had a large field of slow runners. That's where I managed a PB of 31:59.3 - actually 31:57 on my watch - in a race where, way in the lead of course, I multi-lapped so many of the runners, that at one stage I remember going four wide on a bend around runners lapping other runners. I would have run well over-distance. On the plus side, this was the only race in 50 years where I have felt as if my legs and knees were coming up effortlessly with each step, a result of the lunges and half squats I had been doing in the gym. I remember having trouble with pins and needles in one foot during the race, a legacy of the sciatica and back problems. Not many Vets run that sort of time now: do today's runners train hard enough if they are serious about improving? Anyway, like the 5k and the marathon, the 10k was yet another event where I knew I could go a lot faster but it never happened.
Pictures speak lauda than words
