 Short story: 17:44. Longer story ... This is about as local of a race as I can get. Yes, of course, there is the Eeire Erie but that is actually farther away than this race. I had contemplated jogging over to the race as a warm-up, but brought the car to have a place to stow gear.
It was a cool morning (high twenties) but with cash on the line, this race still brought out a good number of local folks, including Clint Wells, Pete Remien, etc. I was treated with visits from JV, PM from the office, and my family - all who came out to watch the race. I always have a goofy feeling about folks watching races. I wonder why they want to do that. They see a start of a race, then they see folks return some time later lathered up with sweat, slobber, feelings of anguish painted across their face. Why would anyone want to watch that? Then again, I am guy who was super stoked to sit at 14000 feet and watch folks finish the Pikes Peak ascent. It is great to have family and friends out there.
I warmed up for two miles with a couple of strides at the start. I did not feel super hot but I did not feel bad either. We got out a bit quick. Isn't that always the case? I mentally tried to get myself to settle about a minute in as we climbed up to the west. I tried to settle in, focus on picking up people, and moving through those that blasted out that should not have. At this time, , not even a quater mile in, fellow Fleet Feet racer, Hans F, went by me. I had no idea what kind of shape he was in so I let him go. We did a little leg to the south with a downhill and he built the gap on me. As we turned onto the west bound street to head out to Waneka Lake, I could see people begining to come back to me. I picked up a couple. Through the climb though, I could tell I was not really having a great day. The plan was to go out relaxed, pick it up and then push. I felt like I had been pushing from 3 minutes in. At the top of Waneka Lake, Doug Bell passed me. He was running really great and I think he went on to catch and beat Hans. He really dug through those last miles. Coming out of Waneka Lake, I noticed a 3K sign my watch was at 10:44 at that point (so that is about 3:35 pace per kilo). We began the long downhill, and while I enjoyed picking up folks, and reeling them in, the opposite held true here. A younger guy I was near pulled away significantly. I managed 7 minutes for the last 2 kilos, and it was a bit of a struggle in the last couple of minutes. All this landed me 14th, and a supposed 4th in the 30-39 age division.
Okay, so what does all this mean? I remember that MK once told me that the difference between a bad and a good 5K was 15 seconds. Hmm. I wanted 17:30 today and got 17:44. Okay, so I did not feel great and I had an off day. Still I have improved from a month ago. Not nearly as much as I would have liked to at this baseline, but it is forward progress nonetheless. As of today, I am 17:44. I may not like it, I may not understand totally how I got here, but I know where I am and where I want to be. That will be the driver. Right now I wear the tatoo of 17:44.
I took a seven mile warm down (11 on the day) and thought about this for a bit. I probably took being in sub 17 shape for granted too much. It was not easy for me to get there and I think once I did, I was able to ride some maintenance work that let me stay there for a bit. The training I did over the past year though shifted all that, and I have lost it. For me to get it back will require a consistent shift to drive to that position.
To that end, I think one of the keys to getting there was doing something like this nearly every week. Back when I was running in the late 90s with the BRR, every Sunday's supposed tempo run was really a deep gut check. You could call it a race, and in fact, I joked when we hit the diagonal, you could almost here a gun crack. Not every week was an all out effort, but more were close to going to the well than not. My tempo's today rarely are like that. Again, I am not advocating that I race, or simulate a race every weekend, but I need to get to a spot with my tempos that are more often going deep than just hitting that 90 percent mark. Today served that purpose. It left me worked and hence in better condition then before the race. I need to do that more.
At this point, with this new baseline data, the training will revolve around three core pieces - the long run, the tempo run (see above) and speedwork (faster than 5K work). I am willing to step away from the mountain work in part for a bit to get this element to a place where I feel more satisfied with it. So, all in all ... good. Progress even though I feel bad. New baseline. Clearer insight. Good gut check. Work to be done. Some other highlights from the day:
- We are all sitting at the start ready to go. Everyone has that nervous twitch. The announcer says it is going to be about two minutes to the start. So, everyone strides out. I jog over to my family to say hello. My son freaks out - "DAD! GO! THEY ARE ALL GOING!"
- Jogging with Lucho after the race. Discussing stride cadence he says to me, "No offense but dude, your stride sucks." He has a point. His turnover goes around 190 a minute. Mine is nearer to 170. I am not sure this is a silver bullet in getting me a minute faster on the 5K, but I will definitely work it.
- Lucho is definitely a student of the sport. He and I traded memory stories of various track and field world championships during the warm down.
- JV located materials for a wobble board he wants to build while he ran with me during my warm up. And yes, he went and did Green when this was over.
- PM had a Geico Caveman visor.
- Lucho saying, "I won today more for third place then I did for 13th at Kona." I don't care who you are, that is jacked up.
Results are up.
Oh yeah ... diet for today ...
AM breakfast - bananna, 2 cups of coffee w/ milk and no cal sweetner
Post race -some juice (about 16oz), and an Odwalla bar
Lunch - about 4 small handfuls of almonds, a small salad w/advocado and it. dressing. Cup of tea. I guess I could skour the internet"s" to find out how many cals that is but ... it is tedious. |
