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The Night Run - Run


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Scottsdale, Arizona
United States
85F / 29C
Overcast
Total Time = 19m 23s
Overall Rank = 7/451
Age Group = 35-39
Age Group Rank = 2/
Pre-race routine:

Race starts at 7:30pm so whatever you do during a normal, sunny, beautiful Saturday without completely sacrificing your ability to race.

Went out for an hour trail run in the morning and had a sneaking suspicion then that this race may not pan out that great. Just the slightest hill on the trails found my effort spiking and my HR shooting up which I attributed to a combination of the heat and still some wear in my legs from Boston

Grabbed some breakfast post run, took a nap and then lounged by the pool for an hour or two. May have had a couple beers while I was at it.
Event warmup:

Mile and a half warm up run with some race pace efforts. Sign two it was going to be a difficult day, anything near 6 flat was a bit of a challenge and trying to dip below (wanted to shoot for a low 17) just wasn't happening.
Run
  • 19m 23s
  • 5 kms
  • 03m 53s  min/km
Comments:

At the horn I went out with the leaders (this was a 5k and 10k which started together) and figured I'd judge my effort on how they were leading out. I had a friend and teammate that was running the 10k and he had planned on hanging with me for the first bit then easing into his pace. That didn't happen...for me.

Rounded the first left onto Main Street and my legs were absolutely flat, could not get them to turn over any faster. Whatever, I'll just see what I can hold on to and go from there. I watched the leader, who consequently was running the 10k, start to put major distance into the field. No worries, he went through 5k at 16 low...yeah. Stud! Then I saw my friend pull up alongside me and start to pull ever so slightly away. That was when I knew this race was over before the first mile.

I kept trying to find the gas pedal but it was nowhere to be found. My friend and I are pretty evenly matched so the fact that he was already pulling away at a mile (he went on to run a 36 low 10k) let me know I was going nowhere fast. So I agreed to let him go and knew it wasn't going to be a PR sort of day. Slowly a couple other people passed me around the 3k mark and that's when I checked up and just bagged this thing. I wasn't going to win (which I had my sights on) and it was going to take a miracle to even get on the OA podium.

So with that I cashed it in, slowed it up to a comfortably hard run and ran it in. There was definitely a lot of pride sucking that last mile and after the race. First time in my relatively short running career that I've found myself with nothing in the tank on race day. It was humbling but we'll come back stronger next time around.
What would you do differently?:

Not much I could do differently. I don't even think taking the morning off from running (no option, this wasn't an A race) would have helped much. Legs were still tired from the Boston effort and just coming off a marathon focus isn't ideal for jumping into a speed race. No more marathons til next April though so now it's time to work on speed for the summer and crush some 5k PRs from here on out.
Post race
Warm down:

hung around, chatted with friends, went and got a beer and a burger.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Leg turnover, training focus, fatigue

Event comments:

I knew this day would eventually come and I'd have to suck it up and deal with not performing to my absolute potential. It sucks but at least it's finally out of the way. Time to regroup, get back into training and focus on getting some speed back and then building into the end of the season A race.




Last updated: 2014-05-06 12:00 AM
Running
00:19:23 | 05 kms | 03m 53s  min/km
Age Group: 2/
Overall: 7/451
Performance: Bad
Course: Big ol rectangular run through Old Town Scottsdale.
Keeping cool Drinking
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge
Organized?
Events on-time?
Lots of volunteers?
Plenty of drinks?
Post race activities:
Race evaluation [1-5]

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2014-05-12 5:08 PM

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Expert
3145
2000100010025
Scottsdale, AZ
Subject: The Night Run


2014-05-13 12:09 PM
in reply to: #4995256

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Seattle
Subject: RE: The Night Run

Psssh I don't schedule any races for a month and a half after a marathon that I even sort of care about the time.

Even when you feel pretty "recovered" the ability to really dig deep is just not there yet. At least that has always been my experience.

They way you describe this race though is exactly how I felt during my marathon

 

2014-05-13 12:39 PM
in reply to: Asalzwed

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Expert
3145
2000100010025
Scottsdale, AZ
Subject: RE: The Night Run

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Psssh I don't schedule any races for a month and a half after a marathon that I even sort of care about the time.

Even when you feel pretty "recovered" the ability to really dig deep is just not there yet. At least that has always been my experience.

They way you describe this race though is exactly how I felt during my marathon

 

Yep, learning process. I didn't expect to lay out a crazy fresh and rested PR but thought I might be able to dig deep enough to run a mid to low 17 here. That will teach me. I've never ran anything so close to finishing a mary so this was venturing into the unknown but this particular race has been a yearly staple of mine. Glad I didn't sign up for the 10k Next year I'llk know better for this one and just trot it with some friends. No more racing til mid June (another 5k) so we will see what happens then.

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