This past Tuesday was the third event of the 2024 Atlanta Track Club Grand Prix series: the 3,000m. This is the first of the two track and field events in the series.
- Official time
- 13:29
- Average pace
- 7:14 min/mi
- VDOT
- 43.3 (@ 77°F)
- Splits
- 200m
- 0:50
- 400m
- 0:52
- 600m
- 0:53
- 800m
- 0:53
- 1000m
- 0:54
- 1200m
- 0:54
- 1400m
- 0:55
- 1600m
- 0:56
- 1800m
- 0:56
- 2000m
- 0:56
- 2200m
- 0:57
- 2400m
- 0:55
- 2600m
- 0:55
- 2800m
- 0:54
- 3000m
- 0:49
- Ranking
-
- Overall
- 64/133
- Male
- 49/81
- Age Group (M40–44)
- 7/9
- Event Page
- Grand Prix 3,000m
- Strava Activity
- ATC Grand Prix 3000m
I generally enjoy the track and field events in the Grand Prix series. The only annoying this is the start time flexibility. My 5k times put me in an 8:30pm heat, but we got an email that day saying everything was pushed back 30 minutes. I was slotted into the same heat as two friends that I run with on a weekly basis.
My VDOT from March’s 10k indicated a time of 13:58 (7:30/mi pace) for the 3000m, so that was my target. Both of my friends had beaten me in the 10k so I joked I was going to sit on their shoulders and hang on. I know that races of this distance cannot recover from a slow start, so I wanted to be sure I got a good start. Otherwise my plan was try to stay under 7:30/mi pace.
It was a bunch start, and I wasn’t at the front, but that turned out not to be a problem as we were hitting 6:10/mi pace around the first turn. I was boxed in against the rail so I just gradually eased my pace until both of my friends passed me. My second friend was moving at about 7:20/mi pace, and I was feeling good, so I stuck right behind her. That worked until the fifth or sixth lap and I noticed she was slowing, so I passed her and tried to keep under 7:30/mi. I had enough gas to kick for the final 100m.
I’m very happy with my performance. Beating my goal by 28 seconds over 3000 meters is significant. I’m increasing my training paces by only one VDOT point to 41.2 instead of the 3.1 points to go to 43.3.
The next Grand Prix event is the shot put in a couple of weeks.