5:00 AM: 10 min shakeout 8:40 AM: 20 min warm up + 6 strides 9:30 AM: PVTC, Langley H.S., McLean, VA, 5000m "race"... (more like a time trial), 15:49.6, 1st place 1600 splits: 4:58.8, 5:06.1, 5:10.7, 34.2 last 200 Well, obviously not too psyched with the time, but there are some positives to take away from this race. Of course, it's always pretty cool to win. But I need to thank my buddies, Brian Tullock and Joe LaMonte, for coming out to run with me. Tullock is training for Steamtown and is at the end of a 90 mile week, and still traded laps with me for the first half of the race. Joe is also marathon training and decided to try to hit 5:08s as a workout. I think he ended up pretty close to that. Brian was second in 16:01 or so, and Joe was not far behind Brian. So what were the positives? Well, I felt great for the first mile and I really think that the splits for the next two miles were just due to being complacent and not really racing. I am just not good at pushing the pace by myself. If you look over my 5ks this summer, my times correlate strongly with the level of competition. In CA at Occidental College (Oxy) (15:39), I started in the very back and worked my way up, being in a race the whole time, doing only about half the work in the last half of the race -- and I think most importantly I was in a battle for the last 800... closing with a 68 sec 400. Next, in Albany (15:45), I was all alone for the second half of the race, just as today. BUT, the big difference there was that there was another pack ahead of me to chase. So, what did I try for this race that did NOT produce magical results? 1. My mileage progression was 100,100,100, 73, 40. In CA, my mileage leading up to the 5k was 100, 107, 72, 92, 67, 75, 70. Just looking at this variable, one might conclude that I race better on consistent 70 mile weeks (after base). My plan is to stay around 70 for XC season.
2. Not to rekindle this debate, but another thing that did not significantly help was abstaining from alcohol for the week leading up to the race. Yes, Sasha, I understand that this does not prove anything about not drinking over the course of a season. But the fact of the matter is that I had a glass of wine the night before the CA race where I PRed. Shouldn't mess with a good thing if it keeps you relaxed.
3. There are also correlations with weather and time of day. In CA it was evening and cool with no direct sun. In Albany and today the race was in the morning and the sun was hot. It was probably 70 by 9:30, which was perfect Labor Day Weekend weather, but still uncomfortable for the race. 4. Another issue is shoes. I raced Oxy in flats and Albany and today in spikes, which I have been training in all season to get use to them. But it is possible that this still is an issue, that it may take several seasons of training and racing in spikes before they become more of a help than a hindrance (but it is just too fun to put spikes on!). Again, this likely has to do with not "being in a race". I think that when I get into a race my form improves and I get out of the "back seat" -- to use skiing terminology. Then the spikes help. So, in the end I was pretty happy with this result. There just was not an air of "fastness" about the meet. And had I realized there would be not so much competition I probably would not have keyed on it. But I am going to take my lessons from this summer's season and apply them to next year and hopefully get into some competitive races next spring. For now, I think I'm fit and ready for XC. But if I seriously want to improve I need to understand why my times have gotten slower with more speed work. Obviously, I am doing something wrong and I just got lucky in June. In my ignorance, I thought I was just at the starting point of my training, when really I likely had every bit of aerobic conditioning then as I do now. If I had to point to any one thing, I would say that I was doing more tempo runs back then, and I erroneously thought that hitting the VO2max intervals hard leading up the goal race was the way to peak. Well, it pains me to say so, but in reading the word of the Dark Lord (or the whiskey man -- as my buddy, Boris, calls him -- presumably you can guess of whom I speak), he actually puts the tempo/rep phase just prior to goal race time and a 6 wk VO2max phase prior to that. So, it will be interesting to see as I transition to XC, where I plan to do more tempo fartleks on grass, if I just might have another peak in me in a month or so of some tempo work. Basically, that was all I was doing leading up to Oxy... 4 mile tempos on the weekend at 5:25 pace and race pace reps like 74 sec quarters and 2:30 800s for a mid-week workout.
Other odds and ends of the morning... I bought a new watch -- the 100 lap Nike, which is basically the new version of the old Nike Triax 120 lap that I have had for about 10 years now. While walking out of Georgetown Running Co. I saw a familiar face from Ithaca running by and so I waved "Tara" down and said hi, with a very surprised look on my face. What are you doing in DC? "Oh, I'm Tara's twin sister, Erin." She was not at all surprised. "It happens all the time," she says... Small world.
| 