my makeup may be flaking

Idea for a race name in Mapleton: The Gobble Creep.

Anyway: goal for the race was to beat me bib# (1652) which I did just barely. I also logged my first sub 17 in a morning race (which tend to be slower than evening races.

I got out hard, staying on the shoulder of Nick Welch. He is a lot faster than me (2:29 at Chicago this year) so I thought maybe I was being overly aggressive to stay with him, but it felt just about doable. Every time he would threaten to put a little gap on me I would find a little surge and get back on his shoulder. A guy from Seattle Racing (turned out to be Joe Creighton who beat me by about 3 mins at the 10k last week) was in turn on my shoulder. 5:17 for the first mile, which was slightly disappointing given how fast it felt.

In the second mile there is a sharp left turn followed by a short climb and this was enough for the two better runners to drop me at about mile 1.9. Second mile in 5:33 meant that I was going to need to close well to get my 16:52.

In the last mile Joe pulled away, but I managed to close the gap back to Nick with about 800 to go and then I dropped him decisively (5:29 mile 3). I had a solid finish (31s) to just get my 16:50.

Turned out that Nick and Joe were running the 10k which explained why I was sticking with them.

The course was relatively fast, but they didn't close the trail to joggers which meant I had to expend some mental energy on not running into people making it slower than a track race. With that in mind, I didn't really feel like I was hurting at the end, which is positive.

Just easy miles. Wore my Kinvara 6, which started to feel a little more comfortable on my morning run. However, I think their lack of flexibility (relative to my Skechers GoRuns) makes them tire out my calves faster as it turns me into an even more aggressive forefoot striker. That means I'll have to hold off on wearing them anymore until after Sunday.

AM 4.34 mile tempo run in 24:55 (5:44 pace, new workout PR!).

Splits

Finished this workout almost as fast as the 5k on Sunday, part of that is opening with a 5:55 mile as opposed to 5:17, but I think it also shows that 5k wasn't max effort like it would be on a track.

Did this workout in my GoMeb Speeds which I usually use for these types of runs. I wore them in the Labor Day Half and Pr'd but I felt like my calves were toast for the last 4-5 miles. Therefore I'm going to try doing a half in my GoMeb Razors, which I wore for the marathon and other long runs. I'm hoping that feeling better later in the race will make up for the extra weight.