1/2 of Awesome

So the first race of the year has come and gone.  How did it go?  Unsurprisingly, I failed miserably to reach my goals.  Well, perhaps that is too harsh.  I managed to put together a team for the race, and we did raise some money for breast cancer research, which means the important goals related to the event were realized.  But I'm talking about my own little selfish performance goals - those are the ones that I failed to reach.  I was hoping to really have a big day, run a faster time than I have in a long time - 19 minutes if possible.  Realistically, I figured I could push and maybe go 19:30.  20 minutes was a given.  In reality, I ended up running 20:45.



The plan was pretty simple.  Try to get to the turn around at about 10:00, then pick things up on the way back.  I didn't get boxed in at the start, I set a good pace that I could hold early, I was a little tight but otherwise things were going great.  I hit the turn around at 10:05 - the first half of the race exactly as planned.

Then came the second half.  Near the turn around I started getting a stitch that spread from just one point all over my side.  I slowed a bit and it eased up, but every time I tried to pick the pace back up I'd be forced to back off again.  I struggled to keep my pace up as much as possible, but really didn't get to push the way I needed to for any kind of meaningful time.  I ended up 36th (out of 750 timed participants), but was 4 minutes off the leader.

So I had a very good half of a race.  From what I can determine, the problem is my low mileage, and my inconsistent training over the past month or so.  Lots of weeks I do well with my harder workouts, but end up missing other workouts like easy runs or long runs.  My whole year has been that way - overall, my training has been good, but when you break it up into any 2 or 3 week period there are gaps in my running that hurt my performance.  I've got to stop missing workouts, especially the weekend long run.

My next race will be the Lewis McManus 5k in Beckley, WV, on June 4th.  It is a fairly small local 5k in the town I grew up in.  Pretty flat, with a handful of local runners who are pretty good, a low-key event.  I've adjusted my schedule to include a lot of interval work and less tempo work.  I'm usually very good at running close to race pace, so I need to do less of what I'm already good at and spend more time improving my pace.