Earlier this week my friend (who I did the Webster Lake Tri with) told me he was considering doing the Sons of Italy 5M run in Lawrence, MA this weekend. In looking at my training program, this weekend was to be a 6 mile run with a magic mile. I took some creative liberties with the idea of a magic mile and said 'yeah sure I'm supposed to do some speed work this weekend - so a 5 miler would be good'. The main reason I wanted to do it though was that I've managed to do a sub-40 minute 5 mile route twice - once last fall and once this spring. I was almost able to extend this to 6 miles a little over a month ago, but fell short by about 10 sec/mile and ended with an 8:10 pace. So I wanted to see what difference the increased cadence, the 4 x 1 mile repeat speed work session a few weeks ago, as well as the fact I was able to do 7:20 min/miles during the Webster Lake Tri a couple weeks ago.
A few days ago, we started looking at the course layout, and found that it was going to potentially be a challenge. The course route itself crossed several major looking streets, and without closing the roads off, we weren't sure how this was going to pan out. In addition, certain portions of the route went through neighborhoods where it looks like we could definately get mixed up. I actually wasn't too awful concerned - I am not normally in a position where I can't just follow the crowd, and I assumed there would be volunteer direction as well as police on traffic duty to manage the cars. How my friend is quite a bit faster than I am - and depending on the size of the race field, it was a very real possibility that he would be running a good portion of the race without someone in visual distance ahead of him. We ended up getting to the venue about an hour early, so we decided to drive the course to see where hills, intersections, etc were. It turned out to be a good thing - because the course was different than was published on the website.
So after a preview of the course, we did some warming up. I find that I am starting to get to the point where a warm up is potentially a good and beneficial thing. In longer races like a half marathon, there is plenty of time to warm up - but this is not necessarily the case in shorter runs. I find that as your ability increases, so does the need for warm ups for shorter runs. Not that I'm looking to place high in my age group (I still suck) - but when you pay to enter a race you can just as easily do at home for free - you mine as well see what you are capable of.
My time for the supposed first mile of the race was the first sub 7 minute mile I've done since high school - 6:48. However, upon mapping out the course when I got home, I believe the first mile was actually another maybe 1/10 of a mile farther along - so its likely that the first mile was more like 7:15 or 7:20 or so. So while that sounds great, that told me I had overdone it and gone out too fast. My body and legs also told me that as well. And my HR monitor - as it was registering the high 170's and low 180's. I wasn't sure I'd be able to sustain that level of intensity. However I was in race mode - and I have a hard time convincing myself to slow down - so whatever intensity I was doing was going to be the intensity I'd keep until I just couldn't do it anymore.
The second mile clocked in at 15:07 - averaging about 7:33 min/mile. At this point my HR was 182, and I didn't know how in hell I was going to finish unless I slowed way down. Maybe later, but not now. For now, I still had the willpower to keep going.
At mile 3, my time was 22:39 - still keeping the 7:30-7:35 min/mile pace. My HR was 181, but averaged 179 throughout the previous mile. Once again - maybe I'd slow down later, but not yet.
At mile 4, the time was 30:27 - I had slowed down about 15 seconds in that last mile, but was still well under 8 min/mile. HR was 180, with an average of 179.
At the time, I thought the course was exactly 5 miles, so when my last mile clocked in at 8:26, I thought I had slowed way down. However, it turned out to be 1.15 miles, and when you account for that extra .15 miles, the pace for the last mile was 7:20. I believe the main reason for that was the last little push I was able to give towards the end.
So, final results:
Total Distance: 5.15 miles
Total Time: 38:54
Avg HR: 178
Notable things from this race:
- Based on my best estimate of mile markers, it looks like I was able to maintain a pace between 7:20-7:40 throughout the race. This is good news - as I was looking to see if I could maintain 7:30 for an entire 5 miles.
- During the last stretch, my HR topped out in the high 180's - at least 187. It was also during this stretch that I felt like my lungs were trying to suck in more air than was possible through my mouth. I dont specifically recall feeling this any time recently - the only other time it may have happened was the Holyoke St Patricks day race. In either case, it occured to me that this may be my HRmax. I'll be looking to update my HR training zones internal link soon to reflect some additional information that I've gathered since last fall on HR training zones, etc. The short version is that I have a feeling that at around 190, I have reached my VO2max.
- I gave this race about as much as I could give for 5 miles - possibly even more than the St Patricks Day race - which I rated a 9/10 on the intensity scale. I'd put this one at a 9.5/10. The only reason I dont give it a 10/10 is because I may have been able to continue for a little bit longer, and I'm hesitant to say that I'm incapable of trying just a little bit harder.
No comments:
Post a Comment