What is this amateur hour?- NE Distance 5k

This past Sunday, I ran in the New England Distance Project Community 5k in Woonsocket, RI.  This race helps provide support for the athletes who are a part of the NE Distance Project, which is a post-collegiate running group.  The group currently has two athletes who receive housing and train locally.  These athletes are working to compete on the national level.  They also hold part-tome jobs, in addition to training, where they serve the community in some way.  I hope that this group, and others like it, continue to grow and be a positive force in their respected communities. 

I was excited for my first opportunity to race a shorter distance post-Boston.  My goal in the 5k is to break 17:00, which comes out to about 5:28/mile.  Earlier in the week I had a very strong workout with my running club.  I ran 3 x mile in 5:35, 5:29, and 5:18.  It felt great to cut the time down through each repeat.  The last repeat, done in 5:18, felt pretty comfortable.  I tucked in behind my coach on the track and ran steadily behind him.  This workout felt smooth.  I also did a light workout on Friday.  I ran 8 x 1:00, with 1:00 rest.  In 15:00 (8:00 hard, 7:00 recovery) I went 2.65 miles.  This equals 5:40 pace overall, including all the recovery.  This means my 1:00 segments were well under 5:00 pace, with the recovery around 7:30 pace or slower.  I felt very good about both of these workouts.  This is the fastest I have been doing mile repeats in training.  I felt confident and determined heading into Sunday's race.  I knew the field would be small and that I would have a chance of competing up front.  I was too certain that I would PR and that everything would go according to plan.

I have always seen myself as a smart runner.  Many young runners go out too fast in road races and this ends up costing them time later in a race.  Last weekend, I ran a half marathon and went through the first two miles in about 5:45 for each of them, before reaching the hills on the course and maintained 6:00 pace throughout the rest of the race.  At the first mile, there were several other runners with me but then they did not run the rest of the race near me.  Many of those runners finished the half marathon with an overall pace over 6:30/mile.  It is not beneficial to go out like this.  The start of a big road race is exciting but there is something to going out right on goal pace or even a little slower.  With this being said, I acted in this exact way on Sunday.  The race began on a downhill and when we were given the starting command I went out hard.  I soon found myself in 4th place.  There were two runners in the lead, and the third just in front of me.  I worked aggressively to bring in this runner in the middle of the first mile.  This is not where races are made and I should not have focused on moving up in place.  I should have stayed within myself and made sure that I would have the energy to carry me to the finish line to reach my desired time.  I hit the first mile in 5:13. 5:13!  My indoor mile PR (which needs to go, only having run one of them) is 5:11.  I could have dropped two seconds if I had really wanted to.  My first mile put me on pace to run

(NE Distance 5k finish)

16:12.  This sounds nice, doesn't it?  The only problem was that I still had 2.1 miles left.  I think I panicked after going through the first mile so quickly and made a conscious effort to slow down.  The course goes up a small hill shortly after the first mile and I backed off pace.  The only problem was that I backed off too much.  My day was over after the first mile.  My legs were gone.  I was out of the race mentally.  I hit the second mile in 5:54.  This is getting closer to half marathon pace, not to mention in marathon training I hit 5 mile tempos at 5:45 pace.  That was the average for a 5 mile workout, not a 3.1 mile race.  I should be able to hold 5:30s or under in a 5k race.  I faded even more in the final mile, splitting 6:53 for the final 1.1 miles (6:12 pace).  Alright, that's right around what marathon pace looked like before Boston.  I finished in 18:03.  Pathetic.  I simply burned myself out early, and in turn, ran my worst 5k result since October.  I know this race was one week after I ran a half marathon, but I'm done making excuses.  I run great times in training and then cannot get it done in races.  I wanted to break 17:00 and could not break 18:00.  Even if I went out too fast, I should not have slowed as dramatically as I did.  It's frustrating.  I feel like I've wasted months of great training by not racing to my potential.  I feel like I keep failing.  I want to compete at a higher level.  I want to run faster times.  I need to prove to myself that I can do this and that all of the training I do is worth it.  I, however, just keep putting up very average times to me.  I feel like I'm letting Team David down.

David

United Healthcare Providence Half Marathon

I have been frustrated.  I have been frustrated since I crossed the finish line at the 117th Boston

(Up the Boulevard- mile 4)

Marathon.  For the amount of time and effort I put in preparing for Boston, I came up well short of my goals.  I did not run a time indicative of my fitness and came nowhere near my potential that day.  I have been reckless since Boston.  This is what I do when I do not like a result.  I jumped back into training, blaming myself and thinking that maybe I did not work hard enough to run the time I had hoped for.  I did not, however, run too many workouts in the past month.  My first workout back was two and a half weeks after Boston.  I decided after this workout that I would run the United Healthcare Half Marathon in Providence on May 12th.  This would provide me with an opportunity to get over my performance at Boston.  The half marathon course goes through my usual training grounds.  I knew every turn and where every hill was going into the race.  My body felt good but not great before the race.  I knew I was still recovering from Boston but I needed to deliver a solid run to get some confidence back.

The race:

After a slight delay to the half marathon, the gun went off and the race began.  The field began to separate by the first mile, which I went through in 5:42.  At this point, I was running in the top-10 and felt reasonably good.  My second mile was 5:46.  Then, the course climbs until you reach mile 3.  I kept my effort the same as my first two miles and split a 6:15 on the uphill mile.  The course is very challenging, featuring a good number of uphill and downhill miles.  My next four miles were all around 6:00.  I split: 6:06, 5:57, 6:04, 6:02.  I then recorded a 6:22 mile up Pleasant Street at mile 8.  This mile is virtually a gradual uphill climb the whole way through.  My next two miles were a combined 12:08, back closer to 6:00 pace.  I reached 10 miles in 1:00:25.  My last 5k was very challenging.  I dug deep and kept moving forward.  I covered this distance in a disappointing 19:30.  I would have liked to have held pace late in the race.  The course also did not help, as there was another big uphill section on Pitman Street leading into mile 11.  My closing 1.1 miles was in 6:34, which comes out to 5:58 pace.  This is encouraging that I pushed it to the finish line.  I crossed the finish line in 1:19:56 (6:06 pace).  This a new official half marathon PR, something that has eluded me since the fall.  I think I would have been able to keep my earlier miles in the 5:45-5:55 range had I been well rested.  I finished in 7th place overall out of nearly 2000 runners and took a 3rd place age group award.  I also want to thank the volunteers at the race.  They were all great and encouraged me along the course!  Overall, I am satisfied with this effort.  It was nice to go out and run consistent miles in the 6:00 range on a difficult course.  I should also mention the course was a little longer than 13.1 miles.  I measured it to be 13.4 miles.  This is pretty significant.  It would put me around 1:18:12 (5:58 pace) for the half marathon.  I measured the course to be 10.2 miles at the 10 mile mark.  This would have put me at 59:14 through 10 miles.  Either way, I still ran a new PR.  I think I was in 1:14-1:16 half marathon shape before Boston.  I am excited with my half marathon time in Providence, but I know I can run faster.  I am going to focus on the shorter distances this summer and attack my PRs from the 5k to the half marathon.  I am running the Chicago Marathon in October and am optimistic about achieving a real breakthrough in the marathon.  After a hard summer of running, I will be ready for Chicago.

Thoughts on Added Security:

This was my first race after the Boston Marathon bombings.  While Providence is a small city, it still made security a priority at the Cox Rhode Races.  There were police with automatic weapons patrolling the start/finish area and they were reportedly questioning spectators with backpacks.  Police also walked with bomb sniffing dogs among runners and spectators.  This personally did not make me feel safe.  I did not feel entirely comfortable competing in a race where I can see automatic weapons close to me.  We are starting to see the immediate backlash of the Boston Marathon bombings.  You have to consider if the police are questioning every spectators or if racial profiling is involved.  Acts of terror in recent years in the United States have been the work of domestic terrorists.  It is also important to ask if money could be better spent other than on police carrying automatic weapons at road races?  Who supplied the money that paid for the extra security?  While defense and security is important, we have a better chance of breaking racial and cultural boundaries by focusing in areas such as education.  I do not mean to be political but the added security did not have a calming effect on me as it may have for others.