Torchlight 5k

Wednesday marked the night of the Torchlight 5k through downtown Minneapolis.  My buddy Chris had invited me, so even though I greatly prefer racing in the morning, I decided to go for it.  Besides, it would be a nice replacement for an interval day.  Well... it's a point to point run, meaning you start at one point and end at in a different place.  I parked at the end of the race, which meant I had to walk to the start line.  I was running a little late due to insane traffic, so I ended up getting to my parking spot about 6:45.  Registration was scheduled to end at 7:15, so I ended up running 2 miles to the start at a little faster pace than I would have preferred.  I think it ended up being a decent warmup; I'm not sure it affected my performance, at least not much.  The one thing is I didn't have time to drink any water, and I was parched by the halfway point.  On second thought, maybe it did affect me, but only in hydration and not in actual fatigue.

In order to register, you need your ID, and of course I had to carry my car keys.  Then, after registration, you get your t-shirt.  Luckily, Chris had parked at the start, so we dropped by his car and left our shirts, but it's pretty poor planning if you ask me.  I guess they figure it's a fun run, so people aren't competing for anything, but a large percentage of runners are like me where they're always trying to get a PR.  Even though I knew this wasn't the best race for a fast time, I was still going to try as hard as I could, and I didn't want additional baggage slowing me down.

We lined up pretty close to the front of the pack near the start line, but again, they didn't have it organized very well.  There was no chute keeping runners from starting on the edges and the sidewalk, so once the gun went off, the start moved even slower than it needed to because people were filling in from the sides into the narrower street.  Finally, nobody seems to understand the concept of only starting up front if you're a faster runner.  Again, even though it's a fun run, I would think you'd have some semblance of thought and start near the back if you're going to be walking.  But no... I ended up passing a woman who started on the front line who had a cane!  I wanted to yell at her as I ran by.  I didn't, but I was extremely frustrated by the lack of any thought or consideration for others.

I did the first quarter mile or so at a pace of over 10:00 per mile, which did not help things at all.  Then, once I got a little room, I did the next quarter mile at 6:25 pace, which again, was not particularly wise, as I would find out later in the race.  Then I continued to roll at between 6:55 and 7:10 pace like I had planned, until about mile 2.5.  Here I started feeling the dehydration and the exertion of having to speed up and slow down to navigate the crowds.  I averaged about 7:35 for the half mile from 2.5 to 3.0, even succumbing to mental fatigue and stopping to walk for 2 seconds.  That is something I am not happy about, and I vow will not happen again during a race.  I had just slowed to a walk when a fellow runner implored me to keep going, and my moment of weakness passed and I trudged on.

From there on, I steadily increased my pace and I did the last .1 at under 6:00 pace, so I guess that's a little bit of redemption.  Still, this is the first time I had ever let mental fatigue take over, and it's not a feeling I like.  In the past, I'd have thoughts of slowing down, but I was always able to quell the feeling before it took a strong root.  Anyway, I crossed the finish line with a gun time of 22:50, and a "chip" time (there were no chips, but I started my watch when I crossed the starting line) of 22:22.  My GPS said I had run 3.07 miles, and I'm not sure how it could possibly underestimate the distance I traveled, so I'm not sure the course is a legitimate 5k course.  I thought I had read that it was USATF certified, and I would believe it if my GPS had overestimated, but I cannot conceive how it could underestimate the distance.  Oh well, I'll take it!

Good week of running!

Whew.  I just finished up a 40 mile week, which is actually my highest total ever.  It was probably my best overall training week, especially considering the bump in mileage.  Had a great tempo day on Tuesday, followed by 5x3:00 intervals at 7:00 pace w/2:00 rest on Thursday, and finished it up with a long run of 14 miles at 2:00 half-marathon pace (9:11 per mile).  My friend Chris invited me to do the Torchlight 5k with him, so I signed up for that today.  I think I'm going to do 400m repeats on Tuesday for my first real anaerobic workout.  I've never done speed work at an anaerobic pace, so I think getting one workout in before the 5k should help considerable.  I'll be doing the 400m repeats in 1:40, which equates to about a 6:42 mile.  I think I'm almost ready to bump my training paces up a notch, but I'm going to wait until I run the 5k to see if I should.

It might be ambitious, but I'm hoping to break 22:00 for my 5k.  After the week of training I just completed, I feel like anything is possible.  One drawback is that I'm not going to taper at all; the only modification I will make is to skip my normal speed work on Tuesday.  Currently, I'm directing most of my training towards the Twin Cities Marathon, and I'm unwilling to let my mileage slide in order to put in a better time at the 5k.  I guess we'll see if my fitness has improved enough since December to be able to PR when "running through" the event.

Threshold Run

I learned my official time in the Minnetonka 8k was 37:28.  I'm positive the clock was at <37:26 when I crossed, but mb it was off a bit.  Oh well.

Not going to go into too much detail today, but I just had a good workout.  Did a 3 mile tempo between 1 mile warmup and cooldown, and I banged out the miles in 7:34, 7:32, and 7:21.  I'm very satisfied.

Once a Runner

Well, I'm guessing the few readers of this blog are probably sick of me just talking about the stats on my runs, so I'm going to try to diverge from that a little bit.  I will still blog a particularly good workout, but I'll try to make it a bit more interesting.

I read the book "Once a Runner" by John L. Parker earlier this week, and boy did that ever make me want to run.  I'm guessing not too many people reading this blog would ever go and read a book about running, but if you ever intend to, I would skip the rest of the paragraph.  In the book, a collegiate runner Quenton Cassidy with a PR of 4:00.3 in the mile gets kicked out of school (for no good reason).  His friend Bruce convinces him to use his cabin and do nothing but train and try to reach his full potential.  He pounds out some 140+ mile weeks, comes back and runs a 3:52.5 mile.  The descriptions are totally what I would expect the training to be like, and reading it was really inspiring.

After I read the last page, I wanted to go out and run 20 miles.  Alas, my legs were still recuperating from my race, so I had to settle for my normal 4.5-5 mile route.  I doubt I'll ever even get below a 5:00 mile, but I promise you that I will get under 6:00.  I don't even know what I could do a mile in right now.  I did the first mile of my recent race in 7:07, so I'm guessing I'm somewhere around 6:30-6:40 for my fastest mile.  That's kind of sad considering I did the mile run in 6:51 back in elementary school without any training.

One thing that was a bit depressing is that the book begins and ends with a 26 year old Cassidy reflecting that his running career is over, that he's too old to compete in the mile.  Well... I'm 26, so it's a good thing I'm more interested in middle distance running than the mile.  Luckily, I'm nowhere near the highest level of fitness I can achieve, so I'll be able to get faster and faster for years to come if I stick with it.

Today I'm meeting my friend Jeff for a run.  I haven't seen him in years, and he's quite a bit faster than I am yet, but he's coming off an injury so I should be able to keep up with him for now :P.

Leave me comments with suggestions of what I should write about, otherwise I'm going to ramble disjointly like I did today.