New Balance Twilight Series, Meet 3

Full results here.

This was the final meet of the New Balance Twilight Series sponsored by, appropriately enough, New Balance and New Balance Boston. I would like to start out by saying how much I enjoyed this series and how much I appreciate them sponsoring such an event. I may have been a little out of place, a slow, old man trying to regain part of his youth, but the series provide great opportunities to run fast times and sharpen your racing skills. I had the best race of my spring season and managed to run faster than I thought possible at this point in my come back.

I had a really easy week of training this week (only about 40 miles or running and one pace workout on Wednesday night) so I was feeling pretty rested and hopeful about running fast tonight. I was not sure how things were going to go today though because I spent three hours out in the sun coaching my sons' baseball game from 10:30AM to 1:30PM and sweat a lot. When I got back to the house I had a quick lunch of rice and started hitting the water to make sure I was properly hydrated for the evening's race. When I got down to Waltham the weather was nearly ideal - it had cooled down to about 70 degrees and there was a very light breeze. I borrowed a page from the CMS group's warm up and did a nice easy 3 miles capped off by a quick 150m-200m acceleration. I have been a bit surprised by how well my speed has come around lately. I have been doing a lot of accelerations at the end of runs and strides after run and just in the last 2 weeks or so I have noticed that I feel much more fluid and natural. Tonight was no exception and I was able to gradually accelerate to top speed without straining. My only concern was that my left leg and hip were feeling a bit tight and I could not loosen them up no matter what I did.

Similar to last weekend's race, I used McMillan's Running Calculator to determine my seed time for tonight and entered a very optimistic 15:10 (a whole 29 seconds faster than 2 weeks ago). I figured that I ran a 4:06 1500m, which is equivalent to a 15:18 5000m, last weekend on tired legs so I should be able to go faster this week. With this in mind my race plan was to go out in 4:50ish pace but be flexible enough to adapt to what was going on in the race so that I had a group of guys to work with. Two weeks ago I made the mistake of sticking to my plan too well and running the whole race alone. I did not want that to happen tonight. As the gun went off all 25 racers and 2 rabbits went off and I fought to get out well but not get boxed into the first lane. I figured that there were far too many people in the race to get trapped like that. I felt great coming through 400m in 71 seconds and started to see the group of guys that I was going to work with - I think that they were Giovanni Signoretti, Carl Dambkowski, Barry Britt and Matt Terry. We continued on the pace nearly perfectly and hit 2:22 (71), 3:33 (71) and 4:44 (71) for the next three laps. I was a bit shocked by the first mile split since it was 18 seconds faster than I got out two weeks ago, but I felt really comfortable, I was not breathing hard at all and I had a good group of guys to work with. All of my other 5ks this year have been almost exactly evenly split and I never felt a lot of pain but this race would be different. The fast first mile would come back to kick my ass later in the race.

I kind of zoned out on the splits and really tried to focus on racing the guys was with, or at least sticking with the crowd and going to the front when I felt like the pace was dropping off, but I think that we started to drop off to 72's for the next mile. I remember going through 3000m in about 8:56 -8:57 and I am pretty sure that we went through 3200m in 9:34 (4:50 second mile) together as a group of 4-5 of us. I was feeling alright at this point, although a bit tired and my breathing was starting to get a little labored. The final mile was pure agony. I don't know exactly when I started to slow down but I think I was going between holding back and not running faster so that I would have a great kick and thinking this was the last race of the season and I had to lay it all down. I truly believe that I ran as fast as I could but could not maintain contact with the other guys I was running with for the last mile and I am pretty sure that I went through 4600m (1 lap to go) sub-14 minutes and 4800m in 14:34 (5:00 third mile). The last 200m on the track seemed to never end and my lungs were about to implode but I was able to close in roughly 36 seconds, not that spectacular of a sprint, and cross the line in 15:10.3. That is only 0.3 seconds off the seed time I gave and my 1500m from last week was only 0.87 seconds off the seed time I gave. I guess that I should have given a 14:59 seed time! I think that the last picture below was taken as I was running the last 100m of the race. The pain is obvious by the expression on my face and I do not look nearly as fluid as I do in the pictures above. The guys I had been running with finished in 15:07, 15:02 and Barry Britt actually went 14:58. I wish I could have stuck with them, but I am ecstatic with the race that I did run so I will have to wait until next year to get my first legitimate sub-15 5000m.

Entering this season I was not so sure what to expect because I struggled with an injury all winter and spent a large percentage of my training time on the elliptical trainer and the bike. I have accepted that cycling is a permanent part of my training but am very hopeful about what the future will bring based on my last month of racing. My first 5k this season was a dreadful 16:28 5k on the roads that had me doubting the training I was doing. My main goal this spring season was to get some speed into my legs and I really wanted to run sub-15:30 for the 5k. In the last month I have shown a lot of improvement and tonight I ran much faster than I ever expected to this season. I used to believe that all of my PR's were behind me but after tonight I think that my PR's for distances 3000m and up lie in the future. I have a lot of work ahead of me in the next couple of months and years but I finally feel like a runner again and am finally seeing progress.

Again, thanks to Tom Derderian for the photos. He has more photos of the meet posted here.

Hollis Fast 5k

Full results here (you can see where I got the picture - thanks coolrunning).

Tonight I made the long trip all the way over to Hollis, NH to run the Hollis Apple Country Fast 5k. Actually, the Alpine Grove Convention Center (where registration and the awards ceremony were held) is only about 2.5 miles from my house and I have run the route over Depot Rd. in Hollis at least a thousand times on my long runs, although usually in the other direction. Over the last couple days, since my workout on Saturday, my legs have felt really fried and I have been really tired. I actually skipped a run on Monday to take a nap I was so tired. I have felt incrementally better each day but, surprisingly, I have not fully recovered yet. My legs were feeling a lot better today but they were still a bit tired and felt flat. I did a 3 mile warm-up to try to shake the blah feeling out of my legs but it was not really working. The race started a couple minutes late and I felt like I my warm-up was wearing off and I was cooling down.

My plan for this race was to not hold back and cover any move anyone else made in the first couple of miles. I did not want to finish this race with regrets like I did my last race. As the gun went off I went right to the front to make sure that the race got off at a reasonable pace. I held the lead until about half a mile or so when Nick Karwoski, Eric Beauchesne and ? passed me. I was fine with this as long as they maintained a decent pace. Before the first mile marker Nick went to the front and really started to push the pace and I made the decision to stick to him. I don't think anyone else covered the move because we were pretty quickly running alone. Unfortunately, I did not wear a watch or get any splits, but my guess is that we passed through 1 mile in a little over 4:50. For the next half mile or so every time I tried to pass Nick he would drift to the side that I tried to pass on and speed up. I decided to stay behind him but use this to keep the pace honest - every time the pace slowed a bit I pulled up on his shoulder and he would pick up the pace. I wanted to really push mile 2 because it had the largest elevation drop and should be the fastest, by far. This is one of the first times I have run behind someone that is bigger (taller) than me and I was fine with Nick doing the work. At the half way point there was a water station and even though I did not take water and Nick did he some how managed to put about 2o meters on me. I started to think that this was it but I pulled up to him just before the 2 mile marker and it appeared that he was struggling. We passed through one of the only flat sections at the end of the second mile and as we entered a big drop I put in a big surge to go past Nick for the final time and opened a 20-30 meter lead on him in the next half mile. The last mile seemed to be twice as long as either of the first two miles, probably because I was running alone and it hurt like hell, but I was able to keep a pretty constant effort all the way to the finish. I crossed the line in first place in a time of 14:56.5 (they listed my finishing time as 14:56.5 in the results at the race but rounded up in the coolrunning results). My only complaint about the race is that they moved the finish line off the main road where it used to be and I was confused about where the finish was. I think I eased up a bit to look for the finish line, but not by much.

Over all I would say this was a good effort, although not as good as my race at the NB Twilight Meet. Based on a thread on Letsrun.com, the elevation drop on this race (224 feet, although I have seen 242 and 262 feet in other sources) is good for about 40 seconds compared to a flat 5k (224 feet * 1.8 seconds/10 feet = 40.32 seconds). So, this performance was equivalent to 15:36.82 on the track but I felt much worse tonight. I suppose that if I were more rested and if my legs were a bit fresher I could have taken another 5-10 seconds off. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about running sub-15, but it is my nature to be critical of every race and find things that I can improve on for the next race. Well, I have to really rest up because I still have the 1500m at the 2nd NB Twilight Meet on Saturday night and the Rhody 5k on Sunday morning. When official results and pictures are posted I will add links and photos to the post. I have to get to bed now ...