Tuesday, March 10: 6:30 PM - Track WO w/ Mario, JP, PM, CM, TO, TK, and MM
23 min w/u, 1600, 5minR, 2 x [4 x 400] w/1minR, 23 min c/d
4:45 / 68, 68, 67, 68 (5minR) 67, 67, 66, 67
Wednesday, March 11: 1:00 PM - 7 Miles, 49 min
Thursday, March 12: 7:30 PM - 5 Miles, 35 min w/ Rebecca, Watson, Carney, LT, and EL
Friday, March 13: 11:00 AM - 7 Miles, 49 min w/ Roland
5:00 PM - 3 Miles, 20 min w/ Roland, Light strides and drills
Saturday, March 14: 8:30 AM - Gate River Run
20 min w/u, 15K - 48:55, 57th place (53rd US), 20 min c/d
Miles: 5:13, 5:10, 5:14, 5:16, 5:12, 5:15, 5:09, 5:22, 5:25, (1:33)
5Ks: 16:14, 16:14, 16:25
Sunday, March 15: 10:00 AM - 6 Miles, 40 min
Week Total = 62 Miles, 8 Sessions
Sorry for the tardiness of this update, but better late than never, right? So this past weekend I ventured down to Jacksonville, FL for the 32nd Annual Gate River Run 15K. It's a race with lots of tradition and has been the host of the US 15K Championships for the last 15 years. I've had this race on my tentative schedule for quite a while and was excited when my team decided to send a squad down. I was hesitant at first because I missed most of the winter with injury and was not in ideal shape to compete in a national championship race. Despite those reservations, I agreed to go down and race with my team and am glad that I did.
I would compare my experience to that of the US 5K Championships this past September. I was able to take a lot of positives from the experience and was very happy with the treatment we received. However, I just was not fit enough to take advantage of the opportunity to race well against the competition that was present. The field this weekend was probably the
best US field I've ever been in and probably one of the best assembled on the roads in several years. Having said that, I have to credit Richard Fannin, the Elite Coordinator, for doing such a great job of organizing this field and making sure that we were so well taken care of. I say this is the best field that I've been a part of, but I can't really say that because I was out the back from the start and ran most of the race by myself. I knew this was probably going to be the case and I ran my race according to plan based on my current fitness, but I didn't think the time that I ran would put me so far back. I'm not saying 48:55 is a fast time, but I didn't think there would be 52 other Americans running faster than that. I also thought that I'd be able to catch a few of those guys falling off the back, but that was not the case as I only caught about 3 guys the whole race. This says great things for the race itself and for US Championships in general. I did have people to pass in the last few miles... but they were all women (the elite women started 5 min ahead of the men). I kept looking up ahead to see where the next guy was, but all I could see were sports bras.I know my performance was nothing to write home about, but I'm doing it anyway. I was pretty satisfied with how I ran and how I was able to gauge my efforts throughout the race. One thing I've gotten better at over the years is the ability to judge my fitness and know what I'm capable of. I knew that anything faster than 5:00 miles was beyond me at this point and felt that 5:05-5:10 pace would be a good race for me (around 48:00). I have never raced further than 10K before, so I was open to the possibility that anything could happen out there. As you can see in the splits above, I never got down to 5:05 and only dipped under 5:10 once. I think the humidity may have been a factor, but the conditions were pretty reasonable for Florida. I wasn't feeling great in the first 5K and just tried to stay relaxed as I ran side by side with Ryan. I was hoping to feel comfortable through 4 miles or so and then start to go to work and crank down the pace. As the race progressed, I never felt that good at any point, but never really slowed down much either, which is a good sign. I tried leaning on the pace a few times in the last 4 miles, but didn't get much out of those efforts as I was stuck at what felt like threshold pace. You'll see the last two miles were slow and it looks like I faded there, but that wasn't the case. There was a 3/4 mile long hill that climbed about 150 ft, starting in the 8th mile and going about halfway into the 9th mile. It was a tough hill, but I ran it hard and was glad to see the pace didn't slow down too much in those miles. After cresting the hill, it was about a 1/2 mile downhill stretch to the stadium and I cruised in pretty comfortably. So I ran the race pretty much exactly as planned and wasn't too far off my time goal. I maybe could have run up to 30 seconds faster, but felt like I ran pretty close to my fitness.
I'll say again that the overall experience was great. Doug Alred (race director) and Richard Fannin (elite coordinator) certainly do a great job putting this on, and with the help of USATF Liaison's Bob Latham and LeeAnn Meyer, there wasn't much that could be improved upon. It was a great motivator for me heading into the spring season and I hope that the next time I'm in an event like this, I'll be at a much higher fitness level and ready to compete with some of these guys.
Furthermore, I'll recognize the rest of the NBB team that raced this weekend, specifically Rebecca and Roland who had great individual performances. I think most of us hoped for a better showing, but it seemed liked everyone found some positives to take away from the event as we move towards our goals in the upcoming weeks and months. I've added Rebecca's blog/website on the sidebar here so I encourage you to check that out and follow her progress as she continues to do great things all over the globe. She'll be in Amman, Jordan next week for the World XC Championships which should be pretty exciting.
If you want to check out some footage of the race and some interviews from the top finishers, check out the Flotrack coverage as they did a pretty good job there. I've also included a few more pictures below for your viewing pleasure.
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