1. My speed and fitness are right where I'd like them to be for this point in the season.
2. I'm a much stronger runner/racer when I demonstrate some patience up front, ease into the effort and push hard over the middle/finishing miles.
3. I love running long :)
PR's set this month:
15k - 53:18
10M - 57:10
20k - 1:11:29
Half - 1:15:37
Marathon - 2:49:29
50k - 3:25:09
Dismal Swamp Stomp Half Marathon - 7th overall, 1:15:37
My plan was to dial in sub-6s for the first 5k, then adjust down to that 545 pace. I started out in ninth, with two groups of four ahead and went through the 5k in 1817 (554 pace). At that point I noticed one of the guys that had gone out in the lead was coming back pretty quickly, so I picked it up to pass him by the 4 mile mark and held effort to the turn - felt great and hit the turn exactly as I wanted. Did time checks to the runners up front and wasn't really close to any (almost 2 minutes to the closest runner) but there was the lead wheelchair athlete about 40" up the road. After the turn I tried to reel her in and did so by mile 9. She was strong - tried encouraging her and told her not to let me pass, and she pushed ahead every time I got within a step. The last 5k got more and more painful and there was about a mile stretch near the end where we were just side by side. Just after the 12 mile mark I said five minutes left - let's surge in (I could also see a guy way up fading and wanted to see if I could catch him). She had a strong surge and I just tried to hang on, but no way! She did drag me past that guy though and nudged him right around mile 13 - you just never know how things are going to go in the last 10% of a race. It's possible to put a lot of time into the people that go out too hard right at the end - I try and remind myself of that in the middle of longer races. Ended up being a 3:10 PR!
Van Metre 5M race (links lead to my strava profile for each race) - 3rd overall, 28:17
Legs were really fatigued heading into this one...two guys went out ahead of me and it was too hot an effort so I backed off and did my own thing from the start. Ran a very consistent race and was relatively happy with the speed - was right on my PR for the distance (the course being approx .1 mi long). Wasn't exactly where I thought I'd be for 5M but hard to account for the fatigue in the legs.
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| Photo cred: Jen Howard Thanks for coming out and cheering, Jen! |
Dismal Swamp Stomp Half Marathon - 7th overall, 1:15:37
The week of the 5M I had nailed a 10 x 1 mile workout, holding 540-545 pace. I figured if I ran this well I could get down to that effort and possibly get under 1:16:00 (547 pace). I was quite a bit more rested for this race than the 5M the week before, so was confident my legs would respond if I eased in and this is about as non-technical, flat, and fast as it gets - a rail trail that was a simple out and back. If you are in the Virginia Beach area, this trail is the superhighway of rail trails -wide and open, well maintained and beautiful!
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| New flats (Skechers GoMeb 5) and new Base Performance kit for my April races - Both served me very well today! |
My plan was to dial in sub-6s for the first 5k, then adjust down to that 545 pace. I started out in ninth, with two groups of four ahead and went through the 5k in 1817 (554 pace). At that point I noticed one of the guys that had gone out in the lead was coming back pretty quickly, so I picked it up to pass him by the 4 mile mark and held effort to the turn - felt great and hit the turn exactly as I wanted. Did time checks to the runners up front and wasn't really close to any (almost 2 minutes to the closest runner) but there was the lead wheelchair athlete about 40" up the road. After the turn I tried to reel her in and did so by mile 9. She was strong - tried encouraging her and told her not to let me pass, and she pushed ahead every time I got within a step. The last 5k got more and more painful and there was about a mile stretch near the end where we were just side by side. Just after the 12 mile mark I said five minutes left - let's surge in (I could also see a guy way up fading and wanted to see if I could catch him). She had a strong surge and I just tried to hang on, but no way! She did drag me past that guy though and nudged him right around mile 13 - you just never know how things are going to go in the last 10% of a race. It's possible to put a lot of time into the people that go out too hard right at the end - I try and remind myself of that in the middle of longer races. Ended up being a 3:10 PR!
Crystal City 5k Fridays, Week 3 - 9th overall, 17:04
My 5K PR came from this series in 2015 - I knew the course and knew it was competitive. Since this was a shorter race, and one where I knew a lead pack would form, my goal here was to get up and race with the front as long as I could. Well, the pace was aggressive from the start and I was only able to hold on till approx 2k - my HR was beyond maxed out and my legs just had no strength in them. They actually felt very similar at the start to what they had in the 5M. Difference was I backed off and ran my own race there, with steady splits (my peak 5k from that race was a 1658). Here we went through the mile in 506 (turns, wind and elev made this the slowest mile for the leaders). When I ran 1637 two years earlier we went through that mark in 519. Then I just died - legs were heavy and couldn't turn them over and really ate it coming up the slight incline around 4k. Finished in 1704 and my last mile was slower than what I had held over the last 10 in the half. No lack of effort, just the difference in how the body responds to different strategies. No regrets on choosing to run this way as it was a fantastic learning tool to see what happens when you run too hard too soon vs. what I had done a couple weeks prior at the 5M.
Jack Bristol Lake Waramaug Ultra 50k - 1st Overall, 3:25:09
This was my first standalone ultra (I've done the double marathon as part of Ultraman twice though). And I hadn't done a marathon since 2009 Philly, outside of an iron distance triathlon. I was super psyched to test myself out over distance. I had a number of goals entering this race: to test out easing in over the first 10k, as I will at Ultraman was definitely one; the second was to see if I could hang onto 19:30 5k splits from there till the end, and get in under 3:20 (which was also the course record).
So I went out patient, and in third place. Averaged roughly 7:00 for the first 4.5 miles, took a stop in the porto-potty, then built into 620 pace by mile 7. By mile 8 I was in the lead and cruised 610-620 miles from there through the end of the second loop. The logistics of this race were there was approx a 4 mile out and back to start and finish this race with three loops of Lake Waramaug in between. A beautiful place to run! With about 10 miles to go I started to slowly crack off the pace - I knew I could up the effort and hang onto pace for a little while longer, but wasn't sure if that would lead to a total blow up so with that amount of time left I readjusted to what I felt was a sustainable effort. I was pleasantly surprised that turned out to be 645s and I was able to hold that till the end, setting a new marathon PR by 11 seconds over the last 26.2 miles! While I would have liked to have set the course record, I'm actually happier that I cracked off that 615 pace and found my strength and fitness to be strong enough to only fade 30" per mile and still cruise sub-7s. That gives me a lot of confidence heading into the double marathon, knowing I can push in the middle and still have the strength to get home strong.
Looking forward to hitting a couple triathlons over the next month and pushing my run legs off the bike!
