The Memorial Day Local 5K

Ran the local 5K yesterday just to give myself a shot at breaking 16 minutes for the 5K before I get into base building again for the marathon in October. I feel like since peaking for the marathon a few weeks ago, I definitely lost some of the edge that I had. I've backed off of most really fast speedwork lately and have just not felt real sharp.

Anyway, Saturday morning I woke up and didn't feel great, but that seems to be pretty typical for me on race morning. I think I let my nerves get the best of me sometimes. This is a very small race, but sampling the crowd before the race there did seem to be some fairly fast looking guys warming up, so I was hopeful there would be someone to push me in those early miles.

Little did I know that I would come out of the gate completely flat. The goal for the race was to come through mile 1 as close to 5 minutes as possible. For some reason, I was really struggling right from the gun on this race and came through mile 1 in 5:10 and probably more worrisome, I was really working hard. At this point in the race, it was just me and one other guy by ourselves. I didn't recognize him and had no idea if he would be with me the whole race or not. He had about a 10 yard lead on me at mile 1.

Finally around 1.5 miles, I passed the guy and with that pass, finally, things started to click. I started feeling good again and things seemed like they were clicking. Even with the renewed confidence, mile 2 passed in a rather pedestrian 5:20 which gave me 5:30 to cover the remaining 1.1 miles. I knew the chances weren't good, but I also knew that I was feeling pretty good at that point.

I hit that last mile hard, thinking back to all the hard intervals I put in, in preparation for the marathon. Because of the sluggish first 2 miles, I was feeling strong at this point in the race and was really hammering now. As I approached the finish line I strained to see the clock and could 15:50...15:51. I sprinted as hard as I could for the tape and came in right at 16:00 flat.

Grrr....

so I'm mildly dissapointed but it's still a 23 second PR and I did run that last mile in 5 flat, so I know I can faster with a little bit better preparation. All in all, I'll take it.

Still Here, Sort of

Slightly burnt out right now, as May historically has proven to be a tough month for me. The marathon, DWD, and one last half marathon scheduled for next weekend has left me somewhat stale and just barely hanging on. I suspect I'll be back to normal soon enough, but for now, I just don't have any desire to blog.

See ya June, if not sooner!

Keep on Keepin' on.

I was doing so good updating this thing and then I stopped. Grr.

Did the standard recovery double of 9 miles in the morning and 6 miles at lunch on Friday. Things felt OK. Followed that up with 20 miles on Saturday morning at a 6:52 pace. This is the second consecutive early morning long run that I've done where I just didn't have it. It's not like I felt bad, I just had zero zip in my step. At this point, I'm not really running these long runs for speed so it's OK. Also, I've been doing some nicely paced 15-16 milers lately, so I guess it's OK if these are a little slow, but it's still a big perplexing. The run was pretty uneventful until the very end when the mayors dog, who often is out on the trail with me in the morning, ran up to me and BIT ME on the thigh. I didn't really hurt, but it did leave a mark and was kind of shocking. Anyway, my mouth hasn't started foaming yet, so I think I'm OK. Plus, it gave me a little adrenaline boost for the final 2 miles, which was kind of nice.

This week I've been trying to focus on getting healthy and strong. This weekend is Dances with Dirt - Gnawbone which is a 60ish mile 5 man relay race. It typically works out to around 10-15 miles per runner, broken up into 3 different segments. For the most part, the focus is on fun, but we should be pretty competitive this year, so I want to make sure that I can carry my weight. So I've been taking it somewhat easy this week.

Monday was a nicely paced 10 miler in 6:19. I didn't really have much in the way of expectations for this run, but I also wasn't going to hold myself back if I felt good, so I pretty much just cruised the whole way. It was a great day outside which helped. Tuesday was another general aerobic run totaling 9 miles at a 6:29 pace. Today I wanted to do one last fast workout before the weekend so I opted for the same 4 mile tempo run that I did last week. This week things were much more consistent than last week and I managed mile splits of 5:29, 5:32, 5:29, 5:24. Things started to get a little uncomfortable during that last mile, but that probably had something to do with the subconcious increase in pace more than anything. Anyway, with an overall average pace of 5:28, I'm pretty happy with the run. I think this is where I should be for this particular workout right now.

Concentration...Or lack thereof

Yesterday was a recovery day with runs of 9 miles in the morning and 6 in the afternoon. The morning run felt pretty good, and I actually ran it a little faster than I should have with the Garmin showing a 6:51 pace, but it felt relaxed anyway. I had a decent tailwind for the entire run, so I think that made me run faster than the perceived effort. The 6 miler in the afternoon was done at a very slow pace and there were a couple of miles, probably miles 3 & 4, that just felt terrible. I think it was just severe glycogen depletion as I had that nauseous feeling that usually accompanies it. I was glad to be done.

Today was a 9 miler with 4 miles at tempo pace. I wanted to do a shorter tempo run today for a couple of reasons. First, it isn't often that I get a chance to run in the 5:30-5:40 range in training. I do longer tempo runs, usually between 5:40-5:50. I do shorter intervals usually around 5:00-5:20 pace, but that 5:30-5:40 pace usually gets neglected. Since I do plan on trying to run a fast half marathon at the end of May right in that range, it seemed like a good idea to get used to what that feels like. Also, since I am theoretically still recovering from the marathon, it just seems smarter to limit myself to these shorter workouts. It seems that things start to break down the longer the workout goes. So anyway, the tempo portion went OK, not great.

First mile came in at 5:28 and I thought I was in great shape for a sub 5:30 pace. Then the second mile came along, and it was just bad, clocking in at 5:43. I wish I knew what happened there. I think I just kind of lost concentration, and when that happens, I usually wind up drifting to my long tempo pace. It happens in races too. I guess that's part of the point of these shorter ones. After the second mile, I hit the turnaround and with it came renewed concentration. I rebounded with a 5:33 and 5:29 to finish up with a 5:33 overall pace for the 4 miles. If it wasn't for that weak second mile, I probably would have been thrilled with the run. Oh well. There will be time to work on these things.