Falésia 5k Road Race

Harriers Alan Derrick and Martin Duthie lined up for a high quality 5k road race last week, half way through the annual warm-weather training camp at Aldeia da Falésia on the beautifully warm Algarve coast. The race is organised by West Cheshire AC who also have an annual training week here along with the 2:09 Events group (60+ runners) I was with, a large German running club (Hamburg) and various smaller groups of international athletes from around Europe.

The course follows two and a half circuits of the road around the perimeter of the village and sports complex, starting at the highest point of the course. Except for the final 400m lap of the running track to finish, there are no flat parts on the course which is either descending or climbing. A 500m stretch repeated 3 times is particularly cruel as the slope is not steep enough to look like a hill but is very definitely a hill when run at 5k race pace and is immediately followed by a 150m climb up the steepest part of the course, gaining 75 feet in total!

The race is considered to be part of the training so there are no easy days before hand (and a training session in the afternoon afterwards!), therefore most of the participants from our camp were definitely not race fresh. Never the less, some very impressive times were set. At the start a group of young athletes took off along with some German vets, all of whom I let go initially with the hope of dealing with the vets as the race progressed. Indeed this was the way the race panned out. The juniors included a trio of Estonian internationals and it was one of them who won the race in a new course record of 15:02, closely followed by UK junior Tom Anderson in 15:07. Meanwhile, I comfortably picked off the German vets and some other stragglers as the race progressed and was well clear in 6th position by the finish in a satisfying time of 16:52 (a Calderglen M45 gold performance standard) and first vet. Keeping the Calderglen veteran profile to the fore, Martin was second vet in 9th position in a time of 17:37 (M45 Silver performance standard). The field of 112 included ages from 18 to 75 and provided a very colourful spectacle in the morning Algarve sun. The course was surrounded by spectators including Mandy Wright and Jimmy Stewart cheering enthusiastically. Further photos are here, thanks to our roving photographers Jimmy and Mandy for their support.

The 10 day training camp did not start off with the best weather this year but despite that we only got rained on once during a training session and by the second half normal service was resumed with wall to wall sunshine. In the 10 days I covered a total of 95 miles which included around 10 steady runs off-road, 1 long Sunday run (with the last 2 miles in a severe lightning storm, torrential hail - not great if you have a bald head like me but wonderful for the complexion - and flooded roads), 2 track sessions, 2 long repetition sessions on the cross country course (last year's European Championship course), a 3000m time trial on the track (9:40 for me), the 5k race and various non-running sessions such as core stability work and yoga. Of course, with all these sessions comes many cakes, coffees, ice creams and meals built in around the sun bathing and dooks in the sea. Unfortunately it is over for another year!