5K time trail report

It was our 5K time trial last night and I was hoping to to get back to the "right" side of 20 minutes again (it was September '06 that I last ran a sub-20 5k).

Alas, it was not to be, and perhaps (indeed probably) never was going to be. My time last month was 20:50 (and I didn't spare the horses then) so it was going to need a 50 second improvement so it was a big ask.

It was windy last night in Troon, almost straight up from the south. This gave us all a boost at the start (where I was going almost worryingly quickly) for the first kilometre. Sadly I missed timing that split (daydreaming too much) but my 2 kilometre split was 7:52. Given that we were running into the wind for much of the 1-2km stretch, I must have been well under 4 minutes for the first km.
2-3km was like driving with the handbrake on though and I had to resort to mental tricks to avoid slowing to a crawl, mentally pulling myself hand over hand along a rope. This enabled me to maintain some form if not speed over this stretch head on into the wind. My time for this km was a miserable 4:24. Ugh!
It wasn't until we reached the seafront that we had the wind on our backs but even then, my 3-4km stretch (which was partially against the wind) didn't improve much (4:13) and there was too much damage done my then to hope for a sub-20 5K. I did manage a 3:56 for the last km but given that I had the wind at my back, I should have been quicker. I *felt* like I was flying along over the last km but clearly I wasn't going that quickly.

Finished ahead of everyone else with 20:26 in windy conditions which is still 24 seconds better than last month so I shouldn't complain but it would have been nice to regain sub-20 form before the end of the year.

Hopefully come the new year as I ramp up the mileage and frequency of my runs a sub-20 will be mine again. I know it's only an arbitrary milestone but that doesn't stop me ruing losing what I had back in 06. ;-)