11/22/15 to 11/28/15: Mild Injury + Pilgrim 5k Race Report

Thanksgiving week is usually a little too hectic to get in my normal mileage, and this week was no different.  Luckily or unluckily, it coincided with a mild injury.  During the Sunday long run I happened to tie the shoelaces on my left shoe just a tiny bit too tight.  I noticed my foot was hurting me somewhere after mile 12 and retied the laces, but by then the damage was done.  I had some swelling and bruising, but nothing that I would classify as major.  I was able to complete a decent track workout on Tuesday and race a Turkey Trot on Thursday, but by Saturday I decided to give the foot complete day of rest...not something I like to do, but with some swelling and achiness caution was warranted.

The Thanksgiving Day Pilgrim 5k went ok.  My warm up was very 'meh', and my foot was fairly bothersome.  But, once on the line the adrenaline took care of the mild discomfort.  Three runners were lined up next to me that I kept my eye on, one in particular being Shaun Dever from GBTC who won last year.  I saw him at the Harvard track on Tuesday and he's been running very well, so I viewed him as the favorite for the win.  We all went out hard and ran ~1:16 or so for that first quarter mile.  The four of us were all right there, but Dever continued the pace for maybe another 20 seconds and built a small lead over us.

I didn't want a big gap to start so I accelerated slightly, and from that point on I gradually tried to close the gap.  As we reached the turnaround I made an effort to accelerate once more so he wouldn't see me as he made his way back.  This helped for a short distance, and his lead remained accordion like for about a half mile more before the road began to narrow with runners still heading outbound.

We were single file and still not finding much running room, and this turned out to be bad news for me.  I had closed a good portion of the gap and was feeling good about eight meters back, but someone with headphones on was all the way to the left of the road and staring blankly at his feet on a collision course with Dever who yelled, "look up...LOOK UP!!!" The runner got out of the way at the last second, but provided Dever with a nice dose of adrenaline and that gap opened up in a matter of ten angry strides.

In the end, I closed the gap again, but ran out of real estate and easily beaten.  I don't know why I do this race though - it's never been measured as a true 5k (this year it was ~3.25), and in the results they had Dever nine seconds ahead of me, when in it was actually ~four seconds...Throw in the fact that it is pretty expensive...2016 Turkey Trot is going to be elsewhere, I think.

Down Week Data:

22-Nov		Long Run		2:19:53		18.12		AM: Battle Road with the crew.  Left foot pretty sore afterward.
23-Nov		Easy/Moderate		2:09:26		17.39		AM: 7+ at about 7:35. PM: 10+ at about 7:20 with ~9m at about 6:55
24-Nov		Easy/Intervals		2:09:18		16.43		AM: 7+ at whatever. PM: Commute to Harvard, then 800/600/400/200 with 4min/2min/1min rest.   Not bad.  Foot ok.
25-Nov		Easy/Easy		0:56:02		7.05		AM: 7+ at whatever. PM: Off. Drive to South Shore.
26-Nov		Pilgrim 5k		0:47:58		6.68		AM: Turkey Trot, 17:40 on a course that was closer to 3.25.  2nd place.  Meh.
27-Nov		Easy/Easy		0:35:39		4.07		AM: ADATTFG. PM: An achy 4+ with Eli and Raleigh. Dumbfoot.
28-Nov		Tempo		0:00:00		0		Off.  Left foot is still sore and swollen, and didn't see any reason to force a run today.

Splits:

800-2:29.51

Rest-3:38.82

600-1:52.50

Rest-2:01.86

400-1:12.71

Rest-1:00.08

200-32.63

Total: 69.74