I knew it would be between myself and Leuchanka for the win. I also knew we were both readily capable of breaking the course record, it was just a matter of who would come out with the win. A week prior to this race, on Saturday morning, we met up at the Newfields-Manchester rail trail and did a 5x6:00 tempo workout with 2:00 rest between each repeat. We were both running pretty hard, potentially testing the limits of each other and our respective "tempo" zones, but regardless, I got the sense that we were pretty evenly matched in our current fitness levels. I got the feeling that he'd be a tough guy to beat in a race-- someone who can latch on and just hang for dear life, and for a long time if need be. I took a lot from that workout both mentally and physically-- I enjoyed the element of having someone else there alongside me as we cranked through the minutes. It was an otherwise cold, thankless early morning (7:00) workout in the woods. From a training perspective, that was my last hard run before taking a few easy days to get myself ready for the race.
In the week leading up to the half, post workout with Leuchanka I felt less than ideal. Let's say garbage actually. I had seemingly strained a muscle, albeit very slightly, in my glute doing hill repeats the week before the race. I took two days off to let that heal, then did some shorter distance runs with pickups to try and keep my legs ready for the race. My legs felt heavy and soft. Going from running 110+ miles a week with multiple workouts to single runs of 5-8 miles a few days later is a huge change and makes it a nightmare to stay positive, especially going into a race that you know won't be easy. The physical and mental shock to the system was hard for me. I was having doubts and plenty of weird aches. Deep down, I knew I needed it though, both from a mini taper perspective and a health perspective, and I tried to focus on that aspect of it. Sometimes you have to go through those weeks when there's a bigger goal down the line. I was glad once Friday came around that things were starting to come together for me.
I knew going into the race that I had been doing a lot more volume that Leuchanka, which gave me a sense of confidence that I didn't quite have when we raced Great Island 5k a few weeks prior. I also knew my overall fitness had improved since then. Were those two things enough to beat him? That's where the race starts.
As the gun went off, Leuchanka and I sprinted down the hill from the high school and basically kept sprinting (or what felt like sprinting) until we hit the mile mark. We went through that mile in 4:57 if I remember correctly, which was certainly helped by the downhill and overall excitement of the race going off. Over the next few miles we clicked off some 5:00-5:09s and I was starting to felt pretty confident about how I stacked up. He seemed to be working a little harder than me at that moment, although that's impossible to gauge with real confidence. As I said before, I felt that racing a longer distance played into my strengths, and I wanted to play up that perceived advantage as best I could. I wanted to press the pace early and often, and just hope I had enough in the tank to make it home. Around mile 4 as we took a turn along the beach, I sensed our pace slow down almost imperceptively, at which point I picked it up to test Alex and see how he responded. I grabbed a slight gap, and knowing the wind was brutal I kept pressing on and tried to establish a little more real estate so he wouldn't be able to draft off me. Before I knew it I was running by myself. I didn't have a great idea of how much distance I had put on him, and not wanting to look behind me, I kept pressing the issue and pushing forward. People told me I had 50-200 meters on him at different points, but I think he stayed pretty much 10-20 seconds behind me for the rest of the race. Not enough to relax by any means.
My race plan was to run roughly 5:05 pace for the first few miles, check my pace slightly going through New Castle at about the 7-8 mile mark (gets a little hilly), then crank it home back around 5:00 pace for the last couple miles. I think I'm probably fit enough to run a half in the 66-67 minute range but the issue I had at Seacost (that was shared by everyone) was that very windy conditions prevented any super fast times. In a way, the race plan faded out of my mind once I was crossing the causeway in New Castle and felt like I was getting punched in the stomach by the wind.
Things got a little desperate feeling at that point as I wondered how much cushion I had. My legs were screaming at me and I felt like I was running sideways. Luckily we both slowed down at basically the same rate-- I had a couple 5:20+ miles in there that felt particularly awful around miles 9-12. I checked behind me taking that final turn toward the high school and was finally able to relax. I saw Ali as I turned up the hill and seeing her standing there smiling was the best feeling of the day. Crossing the finish line was great, but not as good as seeing her and turning up the hill. Even though my time was a minute or two slower than I was hoping, the effort was there and my body responded when it needed to. There's not much to be disappointed about.
I know I just posted this photo, but I couldn't resist
On a side note, I felt so happy to hear so many volunteers and racers cheering me on. Seeing so many people I knew made the race that much more enjoyable. Definitely a positive to running a local event!
As I'm coming off this race and looking ahead, the real training begins.
Onward!
AH
Way to go
ReplyDelete