This year as I gear up to try and qualify for the Olympic Trials in the fall I have been running fewer races than in years past, but have run races that I feel will give me a good gauge of my current fitness and help me to fine tune myself in order to qualify for the trials. So far this year those races have come with mixed results. I had good results at the Provo City Half and the Law Day 5K, while running poorly at the Utah Valley Half, and all three races helped me learn important things that I think will aid me in qualifying for the trials come November. Today was no different, and I am glad to say that I gained a valuable confidence boost while running significantly faster here than last year.
At the start of the race I had three goals. To run 29:30 or faster, to beat Paul Peterson after getting pounded by him at Utah Valley, and to beat Jon Kotter (I was 2 - 2 lifetime against both of them so this was a rubber match of sorts for me even if they didn't know it).
I started the race fast, in front of all but the Africans and one white guy. After a couple hundred meters I relaxed a little and waited until the top Utah guys passed me by. I latched onto the back of that group running just behind Teren Jameson. Just before 2 miles however I hit a rough patch for a minute or two and Teren dropped me, catching up to Jon Kotter. I hit 2 miles in 8:49 (3 seconds off of goal pace) and Brad Osguthorpe and a guy in red passed me shortly thereafter. I dug down to focus on running strong and relaxed and I caught back up to Brad and the guy in red. Throughout the next few miles Brad and I traded leads back and forth as we worked on catching up to Teren and Jon who were running together just in front of us. We hit the 3 mile mark in 13:43 (4:54) and the 4 mile mark in 18:35 (4:52). The guy in red dropped back at some point after 3 miles and I could not hear anyone else, but I kind of knew that there were other people back there. We hit 5 miles in 23:28 (4:53) and caught Jon Kotter shortly thereafter as Teren dropped him. Just after catching Jon, Paul Peterson caught the group I was with and I realized after a quick glance back that within just a few seconds of one another were all the people from 10th-14th in the race. I started to worry a little now, as I had been 11th or 12th for the majority of the race and I didn't want to get beat by a bunch of guys at the end of a hard race. I kept telling myself; just have faith, you can run this fast, you are just as fast as these guys, and I dug down to try and keep pushing the pace. We got onto 900 South and the long slow death commenced, as this road seems to extend for an eternity. Brad pulled to the lead of our group with Jon and I in tow and we crossed the 6 mile mark in 28:32 (5:04). We then kicked, and Brad pulled away from the rest of us. I passed Jon to move into 10th, but simply did not have the speed at the end of this race to stay in front and he passed me back. I finished 2 seconds behind both Brad and Jon, finishing in 29:33 (1:01 for the last .21).
So, I kind of reached half of my goals. The goals to beat Paul and Jon were really not important, but were goals mainly used to help motivate me to compete with guys that run at about the level I am at, and I beat Paul by about 5 seconds, while losing to Jon by 2 seconds. I also did not technically hit my time goal of 29:30, but only finishing 3 seconds off I think is close enough for me to be happy. So, all in all it was a good strong race. I ran a course pr by 40 seconds, and both Paul and I beat the blog record in the 10K that I set at this race last year. This gives me a big confidence boost that I can qualify for the trials in November at Indianapolis. I just need to keep taking one step at a time (both figuratively and literally) so that I can keep improving. | 