Race Recap: Rice University Track Meet

Emily first. My hope for Emily was that she could at least knock a couple of seconds off her 5k PR. One problem: her PR was already really, really good. It’s the nature of sports that you’re going to have days where, for no obvious reason, you are just lights out awesome. The only problem is that it’s hard to replicate that magic, and that’s the story of Em’s 5k. She ran 16:33 two years ago at this very same meet, getting dragged through the first 3k behind 3 very talented runners, then hanging on for dear life. It is easily her best time at any distance. A lot of runners, once they’ve had a magical race like that, struggle for years to improve on the mark.

Women's 5000m...waiting to start the race

So that’s the background on the race. Emily’s workouts have been going great, faster than two years ago, but you still have to get it done on race day. Once we got the heat sheets, it was pretty clear there were only two competitors who were fast enough to be running 16:30 pace. One was Betzy Jimenez (a UT alum with PRs of 4:21, 9:18, and 16:14), and the other was Megan Jenkins, who beat Em in a road race in January, and was only a second or so behind her in her indoor 3k in 9:41 or 9:42. Here are my thoughts as the race played out:

Lap 1: Good, she’s in perfect position. Right behind Jimenez, 400 in 79. This is going to be just like two years ago!
Lap 2: Holy shit, either Jimenez is picking it up a TON, or Em is dying really, really early. Yep, 800 in 2:34 for Betzy, 2:36 for Em. Great, now she’s dropped and she’s not gonna be able to draft off of anyone.
Laps 3-5: Well, she’s not drafting off of anyone, but hey she’s clicking off 78s to 80s, and actually, Betzy seems to be coming back a little...
Lap 6: Damnit Emily, why are you leading the stupid race! They’re just going to sit behind you and let you do all the work!
Laps 7-12: Ok, I take it back...I guess she’s going to win?

So long story short, Emily won the race in 16:38, 5 seconds off of her PR but still, in my humble estimation, a great run in a situation that was very different than a rabbited race like she had last time. And at the end of the day, the goal every time you line up should be to win the race, and that she did.

You can check out her race video HERE

Me time. I ran the 10k, even though I knew the 5k is more consistently competitive, because I wanted a good 10k PR. I’ve used the past 3 months as a time to work on my “speed”, which relative to the marathon means 5k to 10k. I already got what I consider a decent 5k PR this year (15:02), so now it was time to take care of the 10k. Plus it’s closer to the marathon, so it makes a good transition into the next stage of training. My best time going into the race was 31:52, two weeks ago at Bayou City. Now that was a race in the middle of a storm, so I knew I could go faster without 18-20mph winds, but the question was how much faster?

   

I was incredibly happy when the race started that I was able to tuck into the back of a large group of guys running 75s, or 5:00 mile pace. Unfortunately the group started thinning out pretty rapidly after 4-5 laps, and by the 2 mile mark I was in 3rd place. 1st was a Rice guy who had gone out much harder than us, and 2nd was an A&M Corpus guy that I was following. At lap 10 I moved ahead of him and into 2nd, and from then on out it was a balancing act between running even 5 minute pace on the one hand, and trying to catch the Rice guy on the other hand. Emily gave me an update on how far ahead he was (around 18 seconds at the halfway mark) each lap. 

Rob giving Jer splits at the finish

Over the next couple miles I slowly, slowly clawed my way back up to within 3 seconds of the leader, but by then I was so gassed that I wouldn’t have known what to do if I caught him. So that was frustrating, but on the plus side I got a hell of a kick each time I hit a new mile mark. Under 10 minutes for 3200m is much, much faster than I ever ran in high school. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve run faster than my 5k splits, 15:33. 4 miles in 19:57, awesome. I was really hoping to see sub 25 on the clock at 8k, but 25:01 was still really cool. My final time of 31:15 comes out to exactly 75 seconds per lap, exactly what I set out to do, so I’m extremely happy with the result. I’ll do another blog post on where we’re going from here, but this blog post is definitely long enough already.

You can watch the last 10 minutes of my race HERE

Workout Review: Specificity! (The Final Touches)

I’ve talked about a lot of different types of training on this blog. The most important type (and the type I’ve neglected to discuss in depth) is basic aerobic work. The tempos, fast long runs, and fartleks that form the bedrock of good training seem so obvious to me that I take them for granted. But I'll leave that for another day: instead of focusing on the core of good training, I’m going to go straight to the other end of the spectrum. I’m going to talk not about how to bake a cake, but how to put the icing on the cake. Because icing is delicious.

True aerobic work, mileage, etc. are the bedrock of training, and can fundamentally change the type of runner you are. They can shift your potential upwards. But when you’re looking at the short term, not the long term, and it’s time to achieve your potential at a given distance, there is no substitute for specific work. This is true regardless of distance: when you’ve hit the last few weeks of the season, it’s time to get focused and get specific.

When I’m getting ready for a marathon, I have a specific series of workouts that I do to prepare my body for the specific demands of the race. Mostly that means specific long runs, where I run within 3-5% of goal pace (10-15 seconds per mile) for 18-25 miles, and other workouts where I run 12-16 miles averaging close to marathon pace. I do these workouts, at the exclusion of almost any other kind of workout, as it gets closer and closer to the time to focus my fitness on one race distance.

The same principle applies to shorter distances, like the 5k. For a real life example, I’ll take a look at Emily’s workouts leading up to her goal race, the 5k at the Rice track meet, which takes place this Friday, March 23rd. Fair warning: context is everything, and just because a workout happens to be of one type (say, alternations) doesn’t mean it isn’t also a specific workout. Here we go:

Workout #1 (Feb. 9th, t-minus 43 days to Rice): 10k of alternating 1ks - 1k fast/1k medium.
Total specific work: 5k @ 3:25/kilometer (3:28, 3:27, 3:27, 3:26, 3:18)

Workout #2 (Feb. 22nd, t-minus 30 days to Rice): alternating 600 fast/400 medium.
Total specific work: 4800m @ 3:18/kilometer (600s ranging from 1:57 to 2:00, 16:33 5k pace)

Workout #3 (Mar. 7th, t-minus 16 days to Rice): 7x1k w/ 400 rec.
Total specific work: 7k @ 3:22.7/kilometer ( 16:53 pace) last 5 at 3:21/kilometer

Workout #4 (Mar. 17th, t-minus 6 days to Rice): 3x1500 + 1x400 w/ 500 rec.
Total specific work: 4900m @ 3:17.7/kilometer (1500 splits of 5:02, 4:57, 4:56 + 400 @ 73)

The last workout deserves a little added detail: most experts will tell you that no fitness can truly be gained in the last week before a race. I agree wholeheartedly, but I’ve found that there’s value to be had in doing what I think of as a “capstone” workout in the last week before a major race. I honestly don’t know why it works, I just know that it does. The workout needs to be hard, but short, as Emily’s was above. Before setting my 5k PR at the UIW meet, I did 4x1600 @ 5:03, 4:59, 4:55, 4:52. I never actually got down to the pace I ended up averaging for 5k (4:49/1600), but it provided both the specific stimulus, as well as the confidence, I needed to race well at 5k. As far back as when Emily was still coached by our college coach, Brant Lutz, she followed a similar plan: 4 days before running 17:09 for the indoor 5k, Emily ran 3x1600 w/ 800 recovery in 5:40, 5:39, 5:36. We can only hope that the conversion between workout time and race time remains similar!

Workout Review: Fast Repeats, Long Recovery

Although I’m now many years removed from my high school days, I’m still amused sometimes thinking about the workouts I did as a 16-17 year old. Don’t get me wrong, I was at best a mediocre high school runner - never cracking 10:10 for 3200 - but damned if my teammates and I didn’t do some awesome interval workouts. I can recall doing 12x400 averaging 68 seconds per repeat on more than one occasion. Other times we did 3 or 4 mile repeats at 5:10 a piece. This may not sound like much, but for most of my high school career, I was a 10:20-10:30 guy in the 2 mile. Doing mile repeats at two mile pace...? Pretty extreme.

So what was the trick? And why, with these great workouts (that would still be challenging for me today when I’m nearly a minute faster in the 2 mile) was I so slow back then? The recovery. We would stand around for several minutes after even the shortest of repeats, which, since those all-out track sessions were pretty much our only quality work, made us great in workouts and crappy in races.

But in training, as in most things, context is everything, and there is a time and a place for nearly everything.
- Short recoveries between intervals challenge the body’s metabolic pathways, increasing its ability to tolerate ever-increasing lactate levels.
- Fast recoveries between intervals, as I discussed in the last WORKOUT REVIEW (LINK), increase the body’s ability to process and remove lactate from the body while continuing to run relatively quickly.

These two types of workouts make up the vast majority of the interval sessions that I prescribe to myself or the athletes I coach. So when is it appropriate to ditch these more aerobically challenging workouts, and delve into the hardcore intervals of my high school days?

Long recoveries/fast intervals allow you to run fast, and to do so relaxed. This is the important part of the equation. There is value to be had, as a complement to other training, in doing a good amount of running at a fast pace, without straining. This can only be done by allowing the body to recover sufficiently between repeats. This type of work isn’t absolutely necessary for success in the longer distances (10k and up), but it’s indispensable at shorter races to really achieve maximum potential. Any miler will tell you that 200s, 300s, and 400s at goal pace or faster are a key part of their in-season training.

But those of us with 59 second 400 speed can’t be bothered with mid-distance nonsense; we need to know how to apply this type of work to 5k, 10k, and beyond. On that note, the workout that I did last week is one that focuses on 3k to 5k fitness, and putting the final touches on the speed needed to race well at those distances. At least that’s the idea, and at the very least it turned out alright for my race. So here are a couple of examples:

Jer (3 days before 5k PR) - 2x(600, 400, 300, 200) w/ equal recovery, extra 400 jog between sets:
600-1:45, (2:47)
400-66, (1:52)
300-49, (1:28)
200-31, (1:02)
400 Jog- (2:00)
600-1:43, (2:51)
400-65, (1:57)
300-48, (1:29)
200-29, (1:04)

Emily, same workout, Wednesday March 14th, 9 days before goal race (Rice 5k):
600-1:58, (2:49)
400-73, (1:56)
300-53, (1:25)
200-34.6 (58)
400 Jog- (1:58)
600-1:56 (2:52)
400-72 (1:54)
300-52.7 (1:27)
200-32.9 (63)

Race Recap: Bayou City Classic 10k

Jer and I have been on a racing frenzy the past couple weeks. It’s been a lot of fun, especially because we get a chance to see a little pay off for all the training we’ve been doing. Like I’ve said in the past…we don’t train to stay in shape, we train to reap the benefits of it in our races. We live for the race, it is our motivation…always aiming for faster times while our bodies will allow us to.

We did our first road 10k of the season this past weekend in Houston, the Bayou City Classic 10k. It’s a USATF certified course which keeps us from having to guess whether the course was accurate or not. We’ve done it for the past three years straight and it’s a great event. My first time, in 2010, I came in second overall with a 36:04. It was a HUGE 10k personal best for me, mainly because the last time I raced one was a hot and humid day at the conference meet, on the track, from my sophomore year of college (2006). It was near perfect weather conditions in 2010 and a couple weeks later I ended up taking 36 seconds off my 5k personal best at the Rice meet. Last year was pretty disappointing. I ran over a minute slower at Bayou City, 37:08, and that’s when Jer and I knew something was obviously wrong. We finally figured out it’s because I was training with a dangerously low ferritin level of 8. I went into a little more detail about that HERE, but needless to say the spring of 2011 was a crap show of races for me. Finally we got things sorted out and here we are, a year later.

I ran 35:45 this past weekend, a 19 second PR from two years ago, in much worse conditions. It was 52 degrees and raining, but that wasn’t really the bad part, because I can deal with some cool weather and rain. The most difficult to deal with was the wind…the god awful wind that I didn’t even realize existed until the turnaround! It was a trifecta of not so great weather. My first 5k was 17:33 and I felt absolutely amazing. I have never felt so strong and so certain that I could maintain that pace for another 5k, but upon turning around on the mostly out and back course, I realized it was because we had 20mph winds aiding us on the out portion. The entire way back we were completely exposed to non-stop wind, and let’s not forget about the rain. It was brutal, but this is the very thing that separates the strong from the weak. Two years ago, even a year ago, I would’ve just eased up on the gas and put on the brakes, but not this past weekend. I fought through that awful wind the entire way back. I told myself that I was going to get a PR, no matter what, even though I knew the chances of me running a low 35 were slowly slipping away with each passing mile. I was even able to crank out 5:46 for the sixth mile after having a losing battle with the wind over the previous two miles.

The DETERMINATION

I was pretty pleased, but it obviously left me hungry to find out what my true potential is for the race distance. later I was thinking how I much rather would’ve run that 10k on the track in the same conditions as you can at least get some relief every 200m instead of being blasted by the wind for nearly the entire second half of the race. The one thing this race assures me of is that my fitness has never been better and that my mental strength has never been stronger. I even found myself chatting with Jer about the possibility of running a 10k on the track this season.

I wasn’t the only one who was left a little hungry after this 10k. Jer made his debut into payday placing for this race and also ran a personal best time. He cracked 32 with a 31:52, and bested his old time (set at the same course last year) by nine seconds. Luckily, he had the benefit of having company while fighting through the wind with Ben Zywicki, the guy who ended up winning, and our good friend Chass Armstrong, who got second. The three guys ended up separating themselves from the other competitors by mile two and ran together until the last half mile. Six seconds separated the top three men, which is most likely the closest finish the Bayou City Classic has seen in a very long time.

The top three during the second half of the race

Jer and I are taking this coming weekend off from racing and will be competing at the highly competitive Rice Meet on the 23rd. It’ll be Jer’s last go at a track race this season before he starts preparing for his June marathon. Training wise I’m starting to sharpen up a little while also trying to maintain some aerobic fitness. This past week I reached 90 miles with 3 hard efforts: a ten mile steady run at 6:46 pace on Sunday, 7x1000m with 400m recovery averaging 3:21 on Wednesday, and of course the race was on Saturday. I’ve spent the past few days recovering from that before getting back to the workouts! Jer got up to a little over 100 miles last week and spent more time on the aerobic stuff: a 22 mile long run on Sunday, and a workout of 8x1600 with 400m quick jog recovery. He averaged 5:13 or so on the repeats, but did the recoveries fast enough that the whole 10 miles averaged 5:32 pace.

Race Recap: Double 1500 Trouble

From February 25th to March 2nd, Emily raced two 1500s in a 6 day span. Not that that’s a ton of racing or anything, but since they both played out similarly, I thought I could recap both of them in one fell swoop, while highlighting some of the differences.

Part One:
Race number one was at our alma mater, Trinity University, on Saturday, February 25th. The goal for the day was simple: to run fast, and if possible, to PR. Emily’s PR was set two years ago at this very same meet, although back then it was held a week later. This time, just like then, she hadn’t done much in the way of specific 1500 preparation - repeats at roughly race pace, for example. Most of Emily’s workouts have been focused on 5k-10k fitness, not mid-distance.

As the gun went off, Em got out pretty hard, as planned. The goal was to hammer from the start and try to solo a 4:34 (Em’s PR is 4:34.9). The first lap was a little too fast - 71 seconds - but nothing too extreme. Unfortunately when you’re not prepared for that kind of pace, it’s going to REALLY hurt. So she slowed down quite a bit on the 2nd lap, which she ran in 76 seconds.

 

 

At that point I was able to let her know she’d slowed down too much, so she picked it up, but not much - 75 on the 3rd lap. On the last 300 she rallied quite well, and hit 53 seconds, meaning her last 400 was run in 71-72 seconds. The final time of 4:35.3 was only a third of a second off of her PR, which was a little disappointing, but in the end nothing to get too down about.

Trinity Open 1500m video HERE  

Part Two:
For the meet at University of the Incarnate Word, we knew that Emily would again be 15-20 seconds faster than anyone else in the field, so we came up with a different strategy: Em would go out slower, and try to get someone else to take the lead for the first lap. From there she would play it by ear and try to crank down the last 800 to a fast time. But the best laid plans...

As you can see if you watch the video below, she was unable to get anyone else to take the lead. So much for that. But the rest of it played out as planned, as the 400 splits got progressively faster. In fact, the last lap of 69 seconds is the fastest I can recall her running in any race, ever.

Incarnate Word 1500m video HERE  

It is an unfortunate fact that women’s running is, on average, less competitive than men’s running. It is very unfortunate that she has to do these races completely by herself from start to finish, while the men’s races at the same meets are comparatively deep. All that means in the end is that we have to take advantage of the few races where she can come across top notch competition, like the University of Houston indoor 3k or the Rice outdoor 5k. But on the plus side, scenarios like the two 1500s above are a good opportunity to practice different tactics, different strategies, and different facets of fitness.

Team Watebear at the UIW meet

Race Recap: University of the Incarnate Word 5k

My goal leading into the race was to get a new 5k PR. Workouts have been going pretty well, and I set my previous PR last year at the same meet while doing a 10k road race in the morning, so I was confident I could at least take a couple seconds off. This also marked the first time Chass, Rob and I have all run the same race, so it was nice to warm up with both of them.

After the gun went off, I was really happy that the pace felt easy - sometimes you get into a race and it feels like a sprint the first lap. I figured out why when we hit the 200 meter mark: I was going really, really slow. I picked it up and tucked in behind Chass and the leading UIW runner for a little while, until I sensed the pace was going too fast for me. I came through 800 meters in about 2:24, at which point two Trinity runners passed me, and I tucked in behind them.

Winning races is easy if you’re significantly faster than your competition, but this is very rarely the case for me, other than in super low key road races. So when I’m outmatched, or at least evenly matched, I try to race as smart as possible. In this case, that meant latching on to anyone going the same pace as me and avoiding the wind that was kicking up (not hard, just enough to hurt a bit) around the track. From 800m to 3500m, I was content to run whatever pace necessary to stay tucked in and wait for the racing to really begin during the last mile of the race. Many of these laps varied by a couple seconds as the pace slowed and sped back up, but it’s better to stay attached and competitive than to get obsessed with hitting a certain lap split.

By 3k I had moved up from 5th place to 2nd, and I knew I just had to wait for the pace to slow slightly to make a move. I’ve never had much in the way of closing speed, so for me the only solution is a long, grinding drive to the finish. The only trick when you make a move like that is that if anyone manages to latch onto you, then the tactic is pretty much useless - they’ll just draft and wait until the final 200 and blow by you. But when it’s a little windy, and you can get separation from your competitors, then everybody’s in the same boat - they have to face the wind just as much as you do.

So with 1500 meters to go, I moved into the lead and tried to separate myself. I knew the pace had slowed a little bit, so it’s not like everyone else was feeling great anyway. Within a few strides I could see I’d gotten a couple steps of space, so I just tried to maintain as best I could, and save a little bit of energy in case anyone caught back up and I needed a desperate last lap kick. No one ever came back, so I waited until the last 400, ran as fast as I could (67 is about as quick as I’ve ever closed a longer race), and got the win and a new PR of 15:02. It’s not an incredible time by any stretch, but it makes me really excited about the marathon in a few months.

For all those interested in the video of the race just click HERE