Goal: 40-something-lowish. Of course that also means that in the back of my
mind, I'm thinking "if all goes perfectly, and I'm just a hair further along
in training than I thought..."
McMillan's calculator says 40:42 and 40:51 based on my last two races, but I
have been training pretty well and hope to better that by a little.
So it's an absolutely beautiful morning. 57F and sunny according to
nyrrc.org. Spring's really here, suddently, these last several days.
At 9:56 I'm slowly jogging from the baggage drop (where I had stripped down
to shorts & singlet and changed to racing shoes) to the starting line,
congratulating myself on executing my morning plan well for once and getting
properly warmed up, everything else taken care of and to the line on time,
when I am shocked to hear the starting gun four minutes earlier than my
watch thought proper.
Hmmm, that watch has been pretty well synched with all the recent NYRR start
times, and clearly dozens if not hundreds of other folks around me taking
their time to get to the line seemed to share my belief we'd have a few more
minutes. Lesson: always figure they'll start 5:00 early.
Ah well, no time to stop and catch my breath. I hurriedly duck under the
rope and into the river of flesh, coolmax, and eva. Find myself starting in
a mostly slower crowd once again and it takes 26 seconds to reach the
starting line.
I hope the slow crowd is a disguised blessing after my too-fast start a few
weeks ago. It's fairly crowded for the first mile, give or take, as I pass
quite a few slowpokes. First mile comes in 6:48. Damn - too slow, I'm
already 24" off 40' pace.
OK, so keep cool, let's just speed up a notch to 40' pace (6:24/mi) and if
I'm to win any of those seconds back it can be in the second half, *after*
the biggest longest hill at the north end of the park.
That was the intent, but my pace judgement hasn't caught up with my
improving abilities. I instead ran a 6:15 (OK, I think second mile is more
down than up) and a 6:17 (oops, even though that mile nets to around zero
elevation, it's got the biggest down then up).
The whole time I'm passing, passing, passing. Even on the ups, which is
fairly novel for me - historically I've always passed many on the downs but
most of 'em have caught me on the ups.
I think especially this third mile, especially the uphill, was a bit too
fast. I felt pretty worn out for some uphill in mile 4, and the clock
agreed - 6:40. Ouch. However I was still passing passing passing. Nobody
else around me was moving, looking, or sounding any better; most worse. I'm
starting to take more strength from this observation recently in races.
Hey, whatever works, I'm not above a little schadenfreude. (after all,
vahingonilo on aidointa iloa)
Last couple miles in the south end of the park are somewhat flatter. I try
to take heart in this fact rather than focus on how beat I feel, and attempt
to rally for mile 5, still hoping there's an outside chance to [censored] 40:00,
or at least get as close as possible in the process. I succeed, clocking a
6:18.
Sixth mile in 6:28 but fading fast in the last few tenths and unable to
maintain any kind of pace let alone kick to the finish line. I stumble over
that last .2 in 1:28, finally getting passed by about four runners.
I think Daniels mentions that an emphasis on short fast reps, per the phase
I've been in these last 4 weeks (2 more before emphasis moves to long
intervals), might leave you a bit dead-legged and without much of a kick in
the short term. But I think I just paced a little unevenly and shot my wad
a bit prematurely by running the first 9 km at, on average, my 9 km race
pace. And of course blowing the start didn't help.
But overall I'm quite pleased with my 40:14. It's a PR - by 7:19! ('twas my
third ever road race in Feb 2004) - as is the 69.5% WAVA. My finishing
place also looks more impressive than usual but I think that says more about
a weaker field than typical: 151/5126 overall, 138/2789 men, 64/1135 M3039
Like the last race, those round number like 90 and 40 and even 70% (Robert,
I take your point, yet my parade will be warm and dry - it's just a nice
round number to me, which I've been stalking for some time) are getting
tantalizingly close. That's OK, soon enough those numbers will be behind me
and I'll be setting my sights on the next round of more ambitious goals.
Next race is 23 April, a reunion with the 4 mile distance which I've already
PR'd twice in 2006. I hope to make it a trifecta - the speedwork sure ought
to help, even as I plan to train through that race (which is what I mean by
"low priority" in Training Week; "med" means I plan to make that a cutback
week) and probably just take one easy day before.