Cold this morning (relatively speaking - about 40 degrees) for a race. Got in about 3.5 for a warm up. Could tell right away that I was tired. It was a tough week and I'm pretty much spent. I'll back down to just some pick ups for the next 2 weeks with almost all the rest of the mileage at Steady State pace to get ready for the Thanksgiving Day race. At any rate, only 2 of us in the race today really. 3rd place went to an 11 year old, so it was really just me and Bruce from Ghisallo Running. To be honest, as tired as I was, I never really stood a chance. He beat me 2 weeks ago at Glendale by about 30 seconds and I had very good race there. At any rate, I pushed the pace too fast the first mile. He probably might have let me back it off a bit, but it was just him and I after the first 300 yards. We ran shoulder to shoulder through a 5:38 first mile. Had I been rested and fresh, I might have been able to keep close to this pace for the remainder, but as we turned into the first small hill I could tell I was done and Bruce pulled away about half-way through mile 2 and never looked back. My second mile was in 6:25 and my finishing 1.1 was in 6:55 (6:25ish/mile) for a 18:59 and 2nd place. I think Bruce finished about 40 seconds ahead of me or so. I'm calling these miles 10k race pace, not 5k. Quite dissappointed in this race today. My finishing 2 miles were about the same pace as my 1/2 marathon last weekend. Undoubtedly I was tired. I wasn't as concerned about not winning when I think I might have been able to as much as I was that my body just wouldn't go.
This brings me to a question I've had for a while. Almost always when I have a bad run, or don't run to what I think my capacity is, its always a question of cardio-capacity, not muscular. My legs felt fine, I just felt I couldn't maintain the pace from an oxygen intake perspective. I need to keep telling myself this will continue to improve as I've only truly been running for about 16 months, but its frustrating when fatigue sets in and results in this sort of breakdown and not muscular. I did do the half marathon 6 days ago and did 2 1 mile pick ups on Wednesday at 5:30 pace so fatigue is a legitimate factor. Oh well, I've got 3 weeks to rest up for the final real race of the season on Thanksgiving.
Pegasus - 100.4
Gel Speedstar - 93.35 | 