24 mile tempo run. Did this on my traditional Hill Country Village 10 mile route, done twice, with a 4 mile neighborhood add on in the middle. It’s moderately hilly, but the weather was nearly perfect, which made it easier than it should’ve been. Ended up running 5:51 pace for the whole thing, with the last 10 miles in 58:03. By way of comparison, last year I did this same workout 3 minutes slower, fading over the last few miles to over 6 minute pace.
Thursday, October 11th:
8x1600 w/ 400 recovery on the track. Averaged 5:09 for the 1600s, but just as importantly averaged 6:25 pace for the 400 recoveries, which meant the total workout was 16k at 5:26/mile. More importantly, this was done partially in the rain, which makes everything epic.
Week Summary:
Just the two workouts plus a short session of 4x200 on Wednesday. I tapered a bit on Friday and Saturday to get ready for the 10 Miler on Sunday, but still ended up running 128 miles for the week.
Sunday, October 14th:
Weather at this race is always a gamble, and this year we lost. Fortunately my last workout on Thursday had also been in humid conditions, so I was more or less used to it. Could’ve been worse, last year it was nearly as humid and also windy. My goal going into the race was to run somewhere between 5:12 and 5:15 pace, or 52:00-52:30, but anything sub 53 would’ve been ok by me. My PR going into this was 54:15 from last year.
When the gun went off, I found myself running next to Ben Zywicki, a very solid runner from the Woodlands who had won the Bayou City Classic 10k (where I was 3rd) in the Spring. The big surprise, however, was that we separated from the rest of the field almost immediately. Usually this race has at least one elite East African, but this year it was just Ben and me all by our lonesomes. I went out hard (too hard, in hindsight) and hit the first two miles in 5:03 and 5:07. After another 5:07 for mile 3, I decided to drop back a bit, since I am in no way ready to run that kind of pace for 10 miles. Sure enough, I faded over the last half of the race, but hung on to finish 2nd in 52:37, losing by 21 seconds to Ben.
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| Back in March, racing Ben Zywicki and Chass |
This race was a good checkpoint along the way - not a dramatic leap forward, but a solid step in the right direction. I think I hit a good balance of still doing hard training and high mileage leading up to the race, but also being ready to run fast and compete. I’m slowly deciding how aggressive I want to be at San Antonio this year, and I’m leaning towards aiming high. This Thursday morning I averaged 5:32 pace for a half marathon of alternating 1ks, the fast ones averaging 5:09 pace and the slow ones averaging 5:55 pace. Is that kind of pace doable for twice as far with evened out pace and a taper? Probably not, but if the weather is decent I think I’ll roll the dice and find out.
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