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Indoor UAA 5k

February 25, 2012 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 40 Dark/Windy

Comments:
I was the only Case runner entered in the 5k, so I warmed up alone most of the way across the George Washington Bridge and back. I chose to do a three mile warm-up because my stomach had been bothering me some, I hadn't run since early yesterday morning, and I knew I was not going to be allowed to cool down for very long and needed the mileage. My concerns coming into the race were that I would have stomach problems or be mentally unprepared for a race because I haven't shown myself mentally prepared for one since last time I was in New York in November, 2010.

I went out in last place from the start, hanging on to the back of the pack, but following in the inside behind them rather than breaking out into lane three like so many did off the starting line. I was focusing on keeping good form and running as much of the race as I could right there in that position. I came through the mile in 4:52 (and thought 8 seconds in the bank, good). I could tell I was starting to fall off that pace but was determined to keep up my effort. I came through the second mile in 9:55, now starting to split closer to 39-40 second laps than the 36-37s I had been running for the first 3k. The last mile was rough. I was really dying and was passed by a couple of guys, unable to get back up to them. I was lapped once by the leaders with 1k to go, but managed to hold myself together still. I could tell the last couple laps that I was going to finish close to 16:00 if I kept up the laps I was splitting, and managed to kick a little to finish in 15:53, in second to last place.

I took splits for the DMRs and cooled down with Phil on the track until Coach Rubin made us stop. Phil originally wanted to go outside and I wish we had gone so that Coach Rubin would have let us get in another mile since he wouldn't have been able to stop us.

Coach Lanese told me I looked pretty good for the race and ran a bad last mile, though I never seemed to break my form and give up on it. This was a good step forward and 24 seconds faster than my last 5k, though still not quite as fast as I ran here three years ago. What I ran today is normally what it takes to make a traveling squad to this meet, so I guess I at least made good on my extra chance of running here.

The last mile was bad, not because I gave up but because I'm not in very good shape right now from an endurance standpoint. I came in neither in shape nor with any speed whatsoever and we've worked on nothing but speed for the last three weeks so I can at least run acceptably in shorter races and shorter intervals. But, now the next step is getting my endurance back so I am not crashing the last mile of the race like that. I would run really poorly in a 10k right now. I need to do some longer tempos and, after this down week, step right back up to my high mileage.