I'm actually covering 2 races in this blog entry: The Valentine's 5k and the Grimsby 1/2 Marathon.
When I registered for the Valentine's 5k months ago, I didn't give too much thought about running a 5k that was to take place only 1 week after a 100 mile race. A lot can go wrong in an ultramarathon and I really didn't know if I'd be able to put in a hard-effort race at the 5k. Fortunately, I recovered really quickly from the Rocky Raccoon 100. I had no blisters and my leg muscles were feeling quite good by the second day. I had some pain behind my right knee that bothered me for a couple of days but nothing that concerned me and by 5k race day, I felt pretty good.
The road conditions weren't great, since we had a considerable amount of snowfall in the days leading up to the race, but they could also have been a lot worse. I ran the first km in about 3:50-3:55. This split was okay, but I was already feeling tired. The funny thing was that my legs felt totally fine, it was my cardio that wasn't there. Each kilometre got a little bit slower and by 3km, I was in survival mode - just trying to hang on to my slipping pace. I even thought about walking for a few seconds since my time wasn't going to be spectacular anyways. There were some great runners in the race and at 3.5km, even though I was slowing down, I was actually reeling in a couple of runners ahead of me. I eventually caught them but couldn't hold on and they pulled away along with 2 runners from behind me. I crossed in 20:42, my slowest 5k in quite some time. Last summer, I ran a 5k race 1 week after running the Leadville 100 and my legs were far more tired then, yet I still managed to run 19:00. Although the road conditions contributed a little to my time, the real issue is that I am just a lot slower right now. No excuses. This definitely motivated me to start to do something about it. I'm actually looking forward to some high impact interval training to start to get a little bit of speed back. The race itself was a lot of fun and was very well-organized. You can view my race report video below.
Fast forward one week to the Grimsby 1/2 Marathon. I set my goal for 1:29:00, even though I knew I wouldn't be breaking 1:30:00. I really wanted to run this one based on my effort output. I wanted to run it harder than a training run but I didn't really want to treat it like a race, so to speak. The conditions and weather were better than anticipated and about as good as they could get at this time of the year. For those of you who like to geek out on the numbers, like I do, here it is:
I ran the first 5k slower than I normally do, and my split was about 20:55. Typically I try to be sub 20 minutes but I knew I didn't have that in me. Even at the slower pace, I have to admit, it did not feel good. I was already mentally breaking the race down into small chunks. At the 10k mark, I was pretty much at 42:00 flat. My pace had slipped a bit but not much. I felt better at 10k than I did at 5k. That was about to change. After the turnaround, we had a bit of a headwind for the rest of the race. My pace dropped from a 4:15-4:20 to a 4:30/km. Doing the math in my head, I knew that, best case scenario, I was going to be around 1:32:00. If I'm being honest, that disappointed me. The last time I ran this race, I pushed pretty hard and ran a 1:25ish half marathon. 7 minutes isn't a lot of time in a really long race but it's an eternity in a half marathon. The last 4 - 5k meanders through a residential neighbourhood with a lot of turns. I think that the last 1200m were the hilliest on the course but I pushed pretty hard because I was gaining on the runner ahead of me. My perceived effort felt as though I was definitely running sub 4:00/km at this point but my watch, which is very accurate, showed me at a 4:35/km, which was a bit of a surprise. I caught the runner with about 400m to go and ran hard to the finish. As I approached the finishing arch, I watched the clock hit 1:32:00, just before I crossed the timing mat.
Even though my time wasn't too far off of my goal time, I walked away a bit disappointed. I certainly didn't run this race as hard as I could of but I also know that I did push a bit harder than planned. In terms of my effort, it feels as though I should have run around a 1:28:00, which tells me that I have a lot of work to do - even more than I thought! My heart wasn't really in this one but I will say that as I sit here, a couple of hours after finishing, the fire within has been ignited and I am ready to start working.
Here's the plan: I currently don't have a race scheduled for next weekend, though I am looking for one. Either way, today I am going to work out a training plan for the next 6 weeks, which will take me up to the Georgia Death Race at the end of March. This will probably be my most challenging race of the year and I am far from ready. Between now and then I will at least be doing the Chilly Half Marathon, the Laurier Loop 10k, and the Around the Bay 30k. My focus is going to be on speed work and hill training with less junk miles on the treadmill, which has become far too common recently. I also need to drop a few pounds before heading back into the mountains so, in addition to less junk miles, I'm also going to try to consume less junk food. Hopefully, by the time the Chilly Half Marathon comes around I will be able to run sub 1:30:00 without too much difficulty, but who knows.
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