11/15/15 to 11/21/15: Big Week + Kingston Turkey Trot Race Report

This was a great week of training, capped off with a solid 5k win.  The long run was on the quicker side, and felt fantastic.  The workout on Tuesday night was right on the money with the pacing and rest.  And Thursday night's session at the Harvard indoor track was a great mix of lung burning speed, and not overdoing it two days prior to the race.

For Thursday, I showed up at Harvard feeling lethargic and unmotivated, and contemplated just doing the drills and a few extra strides.  I then came up with this workout: 800/600/400/200 with rest of 4/2/1.  Since I was tired, I wasn't overly concerned with nailing the splits.  But, I thought it was important to continue touching on mile paced work and the 800 and 600 in particular are what I was really focused on getting done.  In the end, I felt pretty damn comfortable the entire workout, which came as a pleasant surprise.

On Saturday, Elizabeth and I were on the south shore for the Kingston Turkey Trot.  My father, brother, and nephew Jake were all racing as well.  We stayed the night in Plympton on Friday, and so I was there early to get in a nice warm up and scope out the competition.   The guy who has won the previous two years was recently at the Run for All Ages and ran a 16:19 5k.  That seems a little bit out of my reach at the moment, but I was getting myself ready to test my fitness.

On the starting line, I didn't see any familiar faces, and I simply prepared to run hard out of the gate to avoid the crunch of little kids sprinting.  The course starts with a quarter mile straightaway before taking a turn, and I kept with a couple high school aged kids and another guy right to that turn.  I knew we went fast, but the workouts Terry has come up with mix in mile/5k paced work - so I felt within myself.

One of the kids who took it out fast had a very sudden deceleration after that first quarter and I had to make a quick side step to avoid pushing him in the back.  After a hard left followed by a quick quick right, I found myself running alone.  The first mile was quick and I was feeling pretty good.  Unfortunately, the course wasn't marked especially well so on three occasions I had to slow up to make sure I was taking the appropriate turn.  This, along with a couple sharp hills caused a pretty crappy 2nd mile.  I soon realized that I had a comfortable lead and just kept moving at a good clip to the finish line while trying to hold good form.  It was a great day for running, and very nice to get the win.

The rest of my family had great results as well, and it made that victory even better knowing they were there to run as well.  But a really great highlight is my nephew's post-run conversation with a friend of his who came in third. My nephew, knowing I won asked his friend "nice race, so who beat you?" and his friend answered, "I dunno, some fast old guy."  I'm a fast old guy...

Splits:
1 - 5:17
2 - 5:47 (OOF!)
3 - 5:27
.18 - 45
Final Time: 17:16

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/15/ma/Nov21_Kingst_set1.shtml
Photos: https://danmchugh.smugmug.com/2015-Turkey-Trot/

The Deets:

15-Nov		Long Run		2:15:23		18.08		Battle Road, 18+ at 7:25.
16-Nov		Easy/Moderate		2:15:24		17.88		AM: 7+ at 7:30. PM: 10+ at 7:37.
17-Nov		Easy/Intervals		3:08:49		23.49		AM: 7+ at 7:30. PM: Commute to home then Harvard, then (1000, 400, 200, 200) x 3 (5400) 1000@5K, 400@Mile, 200@<Mile pace
18-Nov		Easy/Easy		1:42:38		12.71		AM: 6+ at 8:00. PM: 6+ along with a mix of strides and short hill repeats.  ~8min avg.
19-Nov		Easy/Speed		2:10:30		16.43		AM: 7+ at 7:45. PM: Commute straight to Harvard, 800/600/400/200 with 4min/2min/1min rest.  The paces weren't perfect, but all close to 4:50, so that's not bad.
20-Nov		Easy/Easy		1:20:20		10.03		AM: 5+ at 8min. PM: 4+ commute home at 8min.
21-Nov		Kingston Turkey Trot		0:55:13		7.53		AM: Kingston Turkey Trot 5k.  1st place in 17:16.  Course was a little long, and I didn't have anyone behind me - so I'm happy with the time.

Tuesday Splits:

1000-3:23.28

400-1:13.06

200-35.09

200-34.68

1000-3:20.50

400-1:12.44

200-35.01

200-34.18

1000-3:18.91

400-1:12.93

200-34.28

200-31.77

Thursday Splits:

800-2:28.32

Rest-4:11.06

600-1:52.55

Rest-2:00.40

400-1:14.18

Rest-51.60

200-33.56

Total: 106.15