It was another warm (70's), humid day....maybe a little warmer and more humid than last week. But, my cold was gone and the course didn’t have the gently rolling hills of last week’s. A 4-mile tempo run at 8:34 pace Thursday gave me enough confidence to set goals for this race that would be an improvement on last week’s performance of 56:37 or 9:07 average pace. I decided on a floor goal of averaging better than 9:00/mile or 55:56; a “realistic” goal of 54:29 or the pace of 8:46 that I ran in the Gasparilla 15k 2-weeks ago; and an optimistic goal of anything faster than that.

 

Both a 5k and 10k race were run on the same course simultaneously. The route was 5k out-and-back with a 1/2 mile loop at each end. The route was repeated for 10k. It wasn’t necessary to declare which distance you were running in advance. You could wait until reaching the 5k point of the race to decide, if you wanted to.

 

My race went better than last week’s, but still not good. My first mile split of 8:29 was 23 seconds faster and felt better than last week, but I knew it was too fast. I slowed to 8:43 in mile 2, which was about right for my goals. Mile 3 passed in 8:49 and I was working harder than I should have been midway through a 10k race. By then, I knew I couldn’t hold the pace for another 5k. I was tempted to simply pull into the finish line 10 yards off the course and call it a day at 5k. But, I really wanted to know how I would fare over 10k compared to last week. So, I kept going while cursing a little under my breath. J

 

Like last week, I continued to slow over the second half of the race, although the wheels didn’t come completely off the cart until two miles later than last week. My 4-6 mile splits were 8:52, 9:05 and 9:29. I managed a 1:55 (9:00 pace) for the last .213 mile for a final finish time of 55:32 and an average pace of 8:56. My 5k splits were 26:58 and 28:34 compared to 27:36 and 29:01 last week.

 

Basically, I held a reasonable pace longer this week, but still faded in the second half. I’m simply not running as well this year as I did last year at the same time. There are three primary reasons. I haven’t yet found a sense of race pace for warm weather racing this year, I’m lacking strength training, and I’m a few pounds heavier than last year.

 

I did finish second in my age group. But, that was because the faster 60-64 guys opted for the 5k, not because I ran a good race.

 

I hope to run another 10k next week, but we might have visitors that could cause my plans to change.

 

Jim2

 

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