Weekly Summary – 73 Miles in 13 runs. A BIG PR at the Hartford Half Marathon (1’05’47 – 5’01/mile) and not much else this week. A great stepping stone towards the next stop: the marathon!
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Lunes, 6 Octubre, 2014 – 10am: Ran late with David through the fells. Felt REALLY good. Legs very fresh right out the door. Finally starting to FEEL the taper. Great run and beautiful. Running under 6’30/mile the last couple miles. Total run 7M in 49’.
5pm: Ran very easy with Mariana on lakes. Felt okay, nice and slow. Total run 5km in 24’.
Martes, 7 Octubre, 2014 – 9am: Ran with David easy on fields. Total run 5km, 3M+ in 23’.
6pm: Ran late, started with Mariana and then solo. Dark. Winter is coming… noooo. Total run 7M in 45’.
XT: Hips.
Miercoles, 8 Octubre, 2014 – 11am: Workout Wednesday! A last tuneup before Saturday’s race. Ran 5km warm up with David to the track, did drills and strides and 200m in 34.
Workout was 1000m at goal HM pace, 500m float three times and then 500m fast to round out to 5000m total.
Felt pretty good. Very windy which made splits difficult (running like 34/71 at first). First one a bit fast just because first 400m was 70.x. 500m float was quick on all (1’48-49 which is 3’36-38/km). All three felt pretty even despite wind.
Last 500m was very quick (1’18, which is 62.4/400m pace). In total, covered 5k in 15’55.
Cooled down easy on the grass with Dave and then home.
Felt pretty good. Wanted those to feel a bit easier, but with the quick rest and the wind, I think it was fine. Legs are feeling good. Taper is feeling taper-y. I’ll be ready to go on Saturday.
Total run 8M.
Splits
1000m: 3’00.5
500m: 4’49.0 (1’48.6)
1000m: 7’51.5 (3’02.5)
500m: 9’41.4 (1’49.9)
1000m: 12’42.9 (3’01.5)
500m: 14’37.6 (1’54.7)
500m: 15’55.9 (1’18.3)
4pm: At CAXC meet at great brook farm. Some very easy jogging around the course. Total run 2M.
Jueves, 9 Octubre, 2014 – 9am: Ran with David. Beautiful morning. Nice loop around campus and then two big laps on the fields. Total run 4M+ in 31’.
4pm: Ran with Mr. C very easy around neighborhood in Concord. Felt good. Finished with drills, strides, and then about 60 seconds at race pace. Total run 4M.
XT: Core, 10’.
Viernes, 10 Octubre, 2014 – 9am: Ran easy with Mr. C again from Concord before leaving. Felt good. Finished with drills and strides. Total run 4M+.
PM: OFF. travel to Hartford. Dinner around 5pm, bed by 10pm.
Sabado, 11 Octubre, 2014 – AM:: Woke up at 4:30am for Hartford Half Marathon, had black coffee and plain bagel. Headed to start around 6:45am for 8am start.
Nasty weather. Cold (~45F) and rainy. Hung out in the elite tent for a bit and then warmed up out/back on the last mile of the course to get a sense of where 1M/1km/800m to go were.
Headed to the start at about 7:50am, barely had time for 2 strides due to having to stand around during the wheelchair start and then being ushered to the line.
Race went off and there was quickly a front pack of 3 Kenyan/Ethiopian dudes, me, Jonas Hampton, and Jonny Wilson. I stuck with the plan and let them go in the first 800m or so and “thumbed my nose at the pace”, running the first mile 4’57 by myself and feeling super relaxed. I could see the leaders at 4’40 or so.
Worked my way up to them over the next two miles (2M in ~10’00) until catching up right around 3M (14’48) and felt great. They were slowing down but I moved right to the front and maintained the pace I’d been running to catch up (~3’00-03/km, ~4’50-55/M). I knew we were coming into one of the longer gradual uphill sections (almost 2M of gradual up), but I felt super relaxed running this pace, so I just kept going.
I got a nasty side cramp near the top of the hill and was worried that this was the end, but I just hung back and caught my breath and was fine. We passed a 5M that was super short (24’10), which I ignored and saw we were actually on pace for about 24’40.
I was still leading at this point as we entered one of the few longer straight sections of the course, heading north up Trout Brook. We had a headwind at this point, but I could tell that every ime I left the lead, the pace would slow considerably, so I just stayed in the front and kept pushing. I knew i might be sacrificing the win, but I wanted to give myself the chance to run fast (particularly under 1’05), and I knew this was the only way to do that.
There was a mat and a big balloon arch that said halfway that we passed in 32’37 (1’05’14 pace – 4’58.7/M, 3’05.6/km). I was still feeling good and remembered what Jon had said about getting to 8M behind schedule and making it all up in the last few miles. I just kept pushing.
One problem I could see was that my garmin was reading significantly longer than the mile markers on the road by the race. I figured this would happen, due to all of the turns and corners on the course, but it meant that I had to consider myself running 1-2sec slower than my watch was reading.
The section from about 7-11M looked the most difficult when I had seen the course the day before. Lots of little steep climbs, corners, and a few sharp descents. I really tried to attack this section. I could see I was still behind pace and I knew I needed to make up time. I was still leading and tried to relax going up the hills and then really let gravity take me down.
Jonas had told me that the worst hill was coming up out of the park around 9.5M and so I tried to just maintain contact on that hill and then push once we got to the top. The problem with this course, mentally, was that it wasn’t like getting to the top of heartbreak hill, where that’s it and the rest of the race is all easy. The hills are unrelenting, even to the last mile.
My garmin logged 16km (just under 10M) in 49’22 (3’05.1/km, 4’57.9/M), but we were closer to 49’45-50 when we passed the 10M marker on the course. I knew that meant I had to run a 15’low last 5k, which didn’t seem impossible at the time.
I really made a bid at that point, running from the front and very hard. But as we made the turn onto Farmington, just past 11 miles, my legs really began to fatigue. I was unable to push the pace and could feel the pack begin to move away from me for the first time. My calves were starting to lock up, my form was falling apart.
There’s a horribly mean hill right around 12M and at that point I was off the pack and losing ground quickly. I ran my slowest km of the race (by far) in 3’19 and lost probably 20 seconds right there. I knew I was hurting and just wanted to close well. At about 800m to go, there’s a decently long, steep downhill and I tried to just use momentum and not let up all the way to the finish.
It took everything I had and I was glad just to see 1’05 still on the clock as I came through the arch and sprinted through the line.
I was on the ground and tried to stand up but my calves were bricked. I got helped up by some of the very friendly medical volunteers (“is this your first half, sweetie?”) who offered me a mylar blanket and some hot soup.
I found my way back to the elite tent where I found Mariana and my folks, before a short cooldown out on the course.
Overall, this was a great race. I was disappointed to fall apart in the last mile a bit and to not hit sub-65 minutes, but I think that would have been an A++ day, so I shouldn’t be too disappointed to miss that. I am very happy with the way I raced. I feel like I MADE the race fast. And like I said before, I knew I was potentially sacrificing the win by leading so much so early, breaking the wind and rain for the rest of the pack, but I also knew that if I DIDN’T do that, we would have had NO chance of running 64 minutes. At the end of the day, it was a great time (a 1’15 PR) on a very tough course in very bad weather. I can’t complain about that.
Now, it’s time to buckle down and get focused on:
1) Recovery – making sure I’m healthy and ready to go after this race.
2) Marathon training – I have 8 weeks to California International Marathon and I already have GREAT fitness to build off of. The marathon is really my best event, so I can’t wait to see what I can do with this fitness over 26.2 miles!
Thanks to everyone for the support, especially my family for coming out and supporting me, Jon for keeping me fit and sane, Hoka One One for their support and awesome shoes (AND super-fly new singlet!), and STRIVE as well for support and inspiration.
FULL SPLITS (note – these are from my garmin which read a total of 21.23km – about 130m long. Thus, each split is really probably about 1sec slower than the garmin read)
1 (3’06.7)
2 (3’12.5) 6’19.2
3 (3’03.7) 9’22.9
4 (3’02.2) 12’25.1
5 (3’01.6) 15’26.7 (15’26.7)
6 (3’02.6) 18’29.3
7 (3’05.0) 21’34.3
8 (3’12.8) 24’47.1
9 (3’02.5) 27’49.6
10 (3’00.6) 30’50.2 (15’23.5)
11 (3’07.4) 33’57.6
12 (3’09.1) 37’06.7
13 (3’10.6) 40’17.3
14 (2’59.6) 43’16.9
15 (3’03.1) 46’20.0 (15’29.8)
16 (3’02.4) 49’22.4
17 (3’08.9) 52’31.3
18 (3’07.2) 55’38.5
19 (3’01.6) 58’40.1
20 (3’19.7) 61’59.8 (15’39.8)
21 (3’08.3) 65’08.1
21.13 (0’39.1) 65’47.2
6pm: Drove home in the afternoon and did a VERY slow and stiff shakeout to get the car-ride out of my legs. Total run 3M in 31’.
XT: OFF.
Domingo, 12 Octubre, 2014 – 10am: Slept late after a very long and tiring day. Calves still super sore. Ran very easy with Mariana on Lakes and then to the grocery store to get yogurt. Still very slow today. Total run 4.5M+ in 38’.
5pm: Ran from Medford to Brookline. A bit better, but still quite stiff and slow. Good shakeout, though. Total run 6.5M in 55’.
XT: Core, 10’.
Congrats on a huge PR. How did you respond to the volunteer who asked if it were your first half?
I think I just said “no.” In retrospect, it would have been nice to have something clever and witty to say, but I was pretty wrecked at that point. I guess running 65 minutes would be a pretty good first half, though…