Carver 5-Miler Race Report

Carver 5 Miler Splits:

Mile 1 - 6:11.85

Mile 2 - 6:19.24

Mile 3 - 6:24.93

Mile 4 - 6:25.47

Mile 5 - 6:09.38

Mile .04 - 0:09.57

Total: 0:31:39

Official Time: 0:31:42.10

Place: 158th

Results: http://coolrunning.com/results/12/ma/Jul28_Carver_set1.shtml

Finally a race where I'm not completed bummed about my effort. In a pre-race discussion with my brother Mike, the time 31:45 came up as the over/under, which turned out to be right on the money. Since I came in under that time, I think this means I won.

The start was a bit of an adventure as I was tying my shoe and assumed there would be a countdown of some sort for the start. Nope. Just as I finished tying my shoe, the gun went off. I stood up quick, and since I wasn't quite at the front, it took me a few seconds to cross the starting line (resulting in the 3 second difference between my watch and the official time). The slight hiccup to start the race didn't affect me though. I had a solid ~2.5 mile warm up that had me feeling loose.

Mile one felt solid and quick, but I pulled back a little bit since it didn't feel sustainable. The pace didn't feel like I went out too fast though - so I'll take that as a positive. The pace slowed from mile 2 through 4, but it didn't feel like it as there were some small rolling hills. I would've liked to see all sub 6:20 miles, but in the grand scheme of things - I don't think the middle miles were terrible. I will say that both my inexperience racing and the fact that I don't have a 'rival' runner that I can pick out and say, "stick with that guy" hurts me a little bit. In the future, I may start trying to catch one runner at a time during the middle portion of the race - that's where I feel I lose focus and maybe that would help.

The final mile went really well, I felt like I picked up the pace just a little bit and began passing a decent amount of runners. And with about a quarter mile left, Jon Waldron came up behind me and told me that the finish was just around the corner. I heard, "now is a good time to start a kick," which I think was his intention. So I picked up the pace, found an extra gear with about 75 yards to go, and finished with an empty tank. Definitely a big help getting pushed, so I appreciated that.

All in all, a good race, and something to build on.

Great photo thanks to http://jimrhoades.com/12/carver/

Mass Ave Mile Race Report

Pre-Race Strategy/Thoughts:

I've never run a 1-mile race, and it's probably been 16 years since I attempted to run a fast mile. So I don't know exactly what to expect, but I'm excited. I would love to run a sub-5 mile, but my recent training indicates that that would be a stretch. But...since my recent training has been in the heat and my shins have been a fairly major issue for the past few months, I may just decide to go for it. If I get in a solid warm up, and my legs have the necessary pop...eh, we'll see. Highly doubtful.

Post-Race Recap:

My pre-race thoughts were pretty accurate...accurate in the sense that my recent training indicated a sub 5 would be all but impossible. I ran a 5:23, which seems about right and is pretty good - but I'm still disappointed. I was right at 1:15 for the first quarter, and 2:36 at halfway...so it didn't feel totally out of reach. Quarter splits:

1st - 1:15
2nd - 1:21
3rd - 1:24
4th - 1:23

Unfortunately, I think my inexperience at the distance really hurt me for the second half, and specifically the 3rd quarter. Toward the middle of that quarter I hit a point where I really started to slow. I wonder if I wasn't physically capable of picking up the pace, or if it was primarily mental. Although it pains me to say it,  I think it was mental. I'm not capable of sub-5 right now, but the way I finished - a strong final 200 - leaves me to think I had a little bit too much in the tank.

So, like most races recently - I feel moderately satisfied. But I'm growing impatient with the current plateau.

Appleman Triathlon Race Report

A pretty warm day, but a great turn out, and a fun race - even if I'm so stupid that I forgot my running shoes at home. That's a special kind of stupid folks. Anyways...Me, Elizabeth, Grum, and Kree were all signed up and luckily for me Nick & Al showed up to do some spectating and Nick had an extra pair of shoes...otherwise I would've reluctantly ran barefoot.

I was part of the first wave for the .5 mile swim, and unlike past races - I didn't wait until literally everyone had started swimming, and I didn't swim on the far edges. The swim course is on a pond and the route is shaped sort of like a horse shoe. I switched between the backstroke and freestyle throughout the race, and feel like I did an ok job of that. I'm still not able to maintain the breathing for the freestyle - and although I don't get tired, I just start hyperventilating. Throughout the swim I ended up kicking a few people, getting kicked, and hitting people in the back of the leg by accident. I'm still not used to all that, but I don't get rattled and panic - I just pop my head out of the water and apologize. I have no idea why. No one cares. I don't even care. All in all, it was one of my better swims and I finished in 16:42 - an improvement of 2:08 over last year.
Once again though, I feel like I sucked horribly during the transition. The results page doesn't show transition times though, and so I'm not sure how bad I sucked, but I'll go ahead and assume it was about a minute too long.

The bike portion was a tale of two halves.  The first five miles felt pretty solid - I stupidly didn't wear the garmin, but I feel like I was easily averaging 20+MPH.  Unfortunately, the second half of the course has a few stretches of consistent hills that killed me. And to make matters worse, I'm pretty sure it was terrible because I don't know how to use my bike. At around mile 7 I was churning uphill trying to get in a lower gear when a girl flew passed me and said, "try not to change gears while your standing"...I'm going to guess that's fairly common knowledge - so while I felt dumb, I appreciated the tip because as she was flying past me I was looking at my chain that I'm pretty sure was about to come off. I took the advice though and sat down and went through the gears. So the second half didn't go well, but I was fortunate enough to get a good tip at probably just the right time.

I came into the transition area with my quads killing me. Probably an ok transition time, but I had to spend some extra time tying Nick's 11.5 shoes extra tight on my 10.5 feet. I went out of the transition area with a really short stride. I was passing people though, and so I just kept moving and hoping my legs would loosen up. I finished the first mile in just under 7 minutes and had finally started to loosen up. Unfortunately at around 1.3 miles, the run enters a trail in the woods that goes basically straight uphill. I actually felt really good in the early sections of the trail, but it was so narrow that I couldn't pass people.  And then when I did try and side step the trail to dash ahead, my foot would shift around in Nick's big shoes and I thought I was going to eat it. When I was finally able to get a little bit of room to breath I was at the final hill on the trail section, which is a tough uphill of ~100meters and really an area where I wasn't going to gain much ground on anyone except people who decided to walk the hill. So mile two was a sucky 8:10. Really sucky. After exiting the trail, we turned right onto the road heading downhill before taking a left on the homestretch. I was able to cautiously stretch my legs on the downhill, but once again it wasn't a comfortable feeling with my feet sliding around. After passing probably 20+ people during the run at this point, the first person passed me at the base of the hill. Since I was still remaining cautious at the bottom of the hill in Nick's big shoes, this dood was able to put a little bit of distance on me. I could see the finish line from the bottom of the hill though, and picked up the pace enough to be able to pass him with about 150 meters to go.

Overall, I'm mostly disappointed. There's no reason my run should be that slow. Yup, disappointed.

Results: http://firm-racing.com/result_report.asp?RID=750&type=1

Nice job by Grum, Kree, and Eli though!

Shin Splints - Gone and Back Again

I went to look back through my training log and my shins have been bothering me since late March. It became progressively worse in my left shin after the marathon, and I was beginning to worry that it was a stress fracture. The shin would pulsate with a dull pain pretty much all day, and I could only run after taking a couple ibuprofen and waiting an hour. Not exactly a sustainable game plan, I know...but they've been getting better. Sort of. Two weeks ago I thought was thisclose to being back to 100%, now I'm pretty far from that. The good news is that both shins have been hurting and the pain is much less intense than what it had been.

A couple weeks ago while on vacation I went on a few runs, and 3 of the runs included hill repeats. I felt pretty good during those runs and was able to hop into the cold ocean water for a post-run "ice bath." It was during the days following vacation that I thought I was almost at 100%, so I'm thinking that all the swimming and cold water had a positive effect on the shins (especially since I didn't really back off on the runs). I had also been doing more single leg lunges, calf raises, body weight squats, etc. to try and strengthen my legs - so that could have helped as well. In any case, I'm going to continue running, but try and do some more leg exercises to test out what works for me.

Sunday		24-Jun		-		3.0		Rest / Cross Train		0:07:45		11.12		Battle Road.  Awesome trail, shin felt great, a bit dehydrated, but was never really hurting.  Great to finally get in a run like this.
Monday		25-Jun		5.0		7.0		Easy		0:08:00		2.5		An easy jog with Raleigh. Finished up with 6 short sprints/strides and then some leg strengthening exercises.
Tuesday		26-Jun		4.0		8.0		Intervals				0		Ultimate
Wednesday		27-Jun		-		4.0		Recovery				5.2		10 min @ 6:24 pace, 1 min rest, 10 min @ 6:22. Very cool tempo workout.
Thursday		28-Jun		4.0		7.0		Moderate		0:08:00		1.35		Jog with Raleigh, and Ultimate.
Friday		29-Jun		-		4.0		Rest / Recovery				0		Very tempted to head out, but I felt really worn down and reluctantly took some rest.
Saturday		30-Jun		8.0		12.0		Long Run Easy				3.64		Fresh Pond race in 15:29, a new PR (kind of)…two cups of coffee and pie for breakfast then 7 minutes before the race I decided I'd run. Still fun.
Sunday		1-Jul		-		3.0		Or cross training/soccer				0.00		Rest.
Monday		2-Jul		8.0		11.0		w/10 100m strides		0:08:00		8.54		Hill route during lunch, roughly 5.5 at 7:40.  Night run with Raleigh, and finished up with 10 sprints. Good stretch & ice bath.
Tuesday		3-Jul		4.0		8.0		Intervals				6.92		1000/800/800/600/600/400/400/200/200 - killer workout.
Wednesday		4-Jul		2.0		6.0		Moderate		0:07:44		3.17		Hot and humid out there.  Took it easy enough though, as today was an active recovery day.
Thursday		5-Jul		5.0		9.0		Hard or Hills				2.79		One lapper around Fresh Pond, new PR: 14:59.  So close to a sub 6 pace, but that'll have to be another day.
Friday		6-Jul		-		6.0		Recovery				0		Did a bit of a warm up, then decided to just do some exercises. Shins.
Saturday		7-Jul		13.0		16.0		Long Run Tempo		0:08:08		11.50		Battle Road again with Eli. Shin was barking a little bit at the start, but not too bad. Very hot & muggy so we didn't push it.

A few really good workouts in there, and some ok distance. Unfortunately, it looks like the next three weeks are going to be difficult to start any kind of consistent training. Races on the 15th/22nd/28th will keep me from doing trail runs, and ultimate will be a substitute for speed work...I'm a slave to the running log!