An unexpected PB

I'll be honest, 3K is not a distance I keep close tabs on. It's a
distance I time trial occasionally.

This morning I set out on one of those time trials. To be honest I've
avoided it like the plague. The last 500m of a 3K time trial are awful.

But due to some rearranging of my schedule due to Mother's Day, I'm
doing speedwork twice this week, and Monday just seemed to be a logical
point to do a 3K TT.

I knew I was in good nick - the speedwork before the marathon indicated
that I was running fast, but given that I've been taking it easy in the
recovery and I had a hard long run on Saturday I thought a PB wasn't on.
Trouble was I couldn't remember my 3K PB.

So I picked 13 minutes as a nice round figure to aim at.

In darkness we set out for the 1.5K turnaround. I thought it might be a
good idea to mark it well, as we would easily miss the faded spraypaint
on the path. About ten metres away from the marking I found an enormous
safety cone with a big reflective strip. From that point I knew this was
a good run.

We jogged out to the start, and took off suitably warmed up. Marlz
decided to stick with me for the first half as he was feeling sluggish.
As I said, I had picked 13 minutes as a target. 4:20 per K. As if by
magic, I settled into this pace immediately. We ran through 500m in
2:10. 1K in 4:20. Breathing at this stage was getting very heavy, but
not difficult. We hit the turnaround in 6:31, and a hairpin turn does
slow you down a bit, so I knew 13 minutes would be a challenge; my
breathing was a bit laboured now and I had to go faster to hit the time.
At this point Marlz took off and I decided to slow a bit because I
thought I was a good chance of blowing up at my current pace. I went
through 2K in 8:47 and 2.5 in 11:00 flat. I was struggling, but I knew I
had a quickish 500m left. It was more a case of hanging on than kicking,
and I finished in 13:16.

When I got home I discovered that my previous best had been 13:24. 8
second PB. Gotta be happy with that!