Mixed Emotions

Monday, June 8: 8:00 PM - 7 Miles, 47 min
Tuesday, June 9: 6:00 PM - Track WO w/ Roland, Ari, Tony, Mario, & JP
24 min w/u
4 x 800m w/ 2.5 minR - 2:19, 2:19, 2:15, 2:15 (3 minR)
4 x 200m w/ 1 minR - 30.1, 30.8, 30.8, 30.2
25 min c/d
Wednesday, June 10: 9:00 PM - 6 Miles, 41 min
Thursday, June 11: 6:00 PM - 13 Miles, 91 min w/ Lincoln crew
Friday, June 12: 7:00 PM - 30 min easy, drills and strides on the track, 10 min easy
Saturday, June 13: 9:30 AM - 10 min shakeout
7:00 PM - NB Boston Twilight Meet #3 (Flotrack Coverage) (Photos)
20 min w/u
5000m Race - 14:44.20, 5th place (Video)
20 min c/d
Sunday, June 14: 8:00 PM - 10 Miles, 65 min

Week Total = 64 Miles, 7 1/2 Sessions

This week marked the conclusion of the NB Boston Twilight Series with Meet #3. Before I go into details about my own race, I must say that the meet overall was a huge success. We had great races all around with several personal bests and qualifying standards met across the board. To highlight the meet, we had three NB Boston athletes hit automatic qualifying standards for Nationals. Rebecca Donaghue did so in the 1500m while winning the event in a personal best of 4:13.78 and pulling 9 girls across the line under 4:24. Despite that being an automatic qualifier, she will not be contesting that event at Nationals and instead be entering either the 5000m or 10000m events. Next, Dave Juiliano secured his spot at Nationals in the Mens 1500m as he set a new Club Record of 3:43.18 to place second behind Maine Native Ben True in a race that had 10 guys under 3:50. Finally, in the last race of the night, Jenn Donovan was part of a stacked steeple field that would put all six finishers ahead of the US Provisional Standard. Jenn raced to a 20 second season PR, finishing in 10:10.99 to capture that Automatic US Standard as well as a Club Record. There were many other exciting performances at the meet so if you're interested in finding out more, you can read the recap on our team blog, watch the race footage and interviews on Flotrack, browse through photos from the races, or check the results.

Moving onto the Mens 5000m, we had a great turnout with talent from all over the east coast. We had two guys that were looking to break 14:00 and a field size of 25 guys. After last week, I was determined to run a better race here and hopefully be more competitive with some of the guys around me. NBBers Jeff Paterno and Tony Orth were assigned pacing duties for a 14:00 pace, and did a great job doing so. Not too long after the crowded start, those 4 guys had separated themselves from the rest of the field. Behind that gap, were three more NBB guys including Roland Lavallee, Ari Zamir, and myself. I found out early on that I would either need to hang with these guys or start running this race solo. I hesitated at first, but quickly tucked in behind my teammates. We were running slightly faster than my goal pace of 70 seconds per quarter, but I was feeling good, so I was hoping I could hang on for a while. At 1200m, I was at about 3:27 and on pace for low 14:20s. With my confidence not being very high after last week and my realistic judgement kicking in, I started to let the gap open up between myself and my teammates. I can't know for sure what would have happened if I just stayed with Ari, but I wasn't feeling comfortable enough to take that chance and was afraid that I would rig in the last mile... and I didn't want another death march to the finish this week. So like last week, I was all by myself again not even 4 laps into the race even though there were 25 guys in the field. I tried to stay relaxed and settle into 70 second quarters, but after about 2400m, I was starting to run north of that pace and continuing to slow. Even though I came through 3K right where I wanted to be (8:46), I knew I was off the pace and that unless I could pull off a remarkable last 2k, I would miss my goal in this race. I continued to run by myself and continued to let the pace slip a little more each lap. Finally, in the last 400m, I could hear someone starting to reel me in, so I tried my best to hold them off and did so finishing in 14:44 and without passing or getting passed by a single person in the last 11 laps of the race.

After I finished, I was half relieved that I did better than last week, but still had that feeling that I didn't race to my potential. I guess part of the reason was because there was no race around me to race in. It's been about 14 months since my last competitive track 5K and now that I'm finally healthy and in reasonable shape, I was hoping to actually be competitive again. Part of me wished I had just grown a pair and stayed with Ari for longer, but with my inconsistency recently, I just settled for what was more comfortable. I did run a lot better than I did last week, and for that, I am relieved. But I'm certainly not happy with what I did out there. I guess maybe I should be happy with it when I consider the preparation I've done leading up to it. But then again, I'm not happy with my preparation so how could I be happy with the result it produced. I'm probably being a little harsh on myself, but I just know I can do better... with everything!

This was most likely my last track race of the year, which means another year down without a track PR. I'm bummed that I wasn't able to take better advantage of these opportunities, but I am glad that I was actually able to take part in them... unlike last year when I was just watching from the sidelines. In that sense, I do see this race as progress. It may be a very small progression from where I was a couple months ago, but it is progress nonetheless. And that is enough to keep me going. As I said before, I don't have any more track races planned, and the only other race I have on the schedule is the Beach to Beacon 10K on August 1. If I can be more consistent in these next six weeks and work a little harder, I think I could be in pretty good shape for this race and have one last chance of finishing this training cycle with a great performance. I might do a race before then, maybe a 4th of July race, but I'll wait to see what Kevin suggests and take it from there. Either way, I'll be excited to race in Maine again with my friends and teammates in my favorite race of the year, and I look forward to a positive close to the "season". Beyond that, there will be many more races and many more goals as the New Balance Boston Men look to have one of their strongest cross country teams ever to join the already successful Ladies in their high ranks. First, we've got a lot of work to do, so stay tuned for more to come.