I am one with the levee and the levee with me

UW Last Chance 3k

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Location:

North Salt Lake,UT,

Member Since:

Dec 12, 2007

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Olympic Trials Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

1500m - 3:59.9h (2014)

5000m - 14:53.45 (Portland Track Festival 2014)

8k XC - 25:09 (Sundodger 2011)

10k XC - 31:31 (WWU Invite 2011)

HM - 1:10:19 (Houston 2018)

Marathon - 2:28:39 (Houston 2019)

Long-Term Running Goals:

Olympic Trials Qualifier

Personal:

Married, working, training. While my wife has nixed all future attempts to grow glorious mustaches, she has been supportive of my crazy running dreams. Life is good.

Favorite Blogs:

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Miles:This week: 1.00 Month: 1.00 Year: 1.00
Mizuno Ekiden Lifetime Miles: 274.65
Flyknit Streaks Lifetime Miles: 419.25
Flyknit VFs Lifetime Miles: 80.50
Ride 14 Lifetime Miles: 652.85
Ride 15 Lifetime Miles: 275.80
Ride 15 X2 Lifetime Miles: 21.50
Race: UW Last Chance 3k (1.8645 Miles) 00:08:54
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
14.140.000.001.8616.00

Disappointing race for me today at Dempsey Indoor. It was such a nice day in Seattle I think my body was just depressed to run indoors. Or maybe I just ran dumb. One or the other.

I seeded myself at 8:33 which is a lie but I wanted to get into the fastest heat and figured 8:33 was reachable. I mean, I ran 8:45 two months ago on less mileage and half-way barefoot, you would think that would factor to right around 8:33.

But I didn't get into the fastest heat. UW placed 3 of their own guys in the fast heat, despite having slower seed times than me. And yes, this bothers me. Yeah, I see the irony, my seed was a lie... but they didn't know that. What's the point of a seed time if you're just going to slip people in wherever you feel like? It's like that Seinfeld episode.

The one complaint I have with Dempsey is that they give the #1 seed the worst start position - right up against the rail. The 3k starts at the end of a curve, so if you don't get out really fast, you get boxed. Which means when you get out fast enough to get clear, everyone else falls in behind you because, hey you're the #1 seed, you're supposed to be fast. And I was arrogant enough to think I could beat them from the front. At first I thought it was working because I couldn't hear anyone behind me. 69 first lap. 70 second. Oh wait, I hear footsteps. Pick up the pace. Is that fast enough? I'm not sure, I'm out front and this feels fast, there's another 70, that's odd I thought I picked it up. My legs are starting to get tight, how are these guys still with me, they should be hurting too!

At the mile (4:39) this guy tried to go around me and I decided I decided to keep the lead wire to wire if I could, so I surged to keep him from passing me and make him run in lane 2. He started crowding me and trying to force me to let him take it so I gave him a few elbows and shoved him out of my space a little. It really really bugs me when runners crowd me from the outside. If you're going to pass, pass. Don't cut me off. Dumb move on my part, I should have been happy to let someone else take the lead and rest. When he finally managed to get around, 8 other guys were right there behind him, one right after the other, and going from 1st to 10th completely broke me.

So I led through 2k in 5:50 and ran the last 1k in 3:04. Not so hot. I'm trying to be positive here and chalk it up to experience. Plenty of lessons to learn from this one.

My goal for the coming weeks is to take better care of my body. I haven't been eating or sleeping well enough, I think it's time to improve.

Switch 3 Miles: 14.23
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00
Comments
From Missee on Sun, Mar 07, 2010 at 01:46:07 from 75.169.149.68

Well, ya win some, and ya lose some! At least you learned something. I'm still impressed w/ your times, though! Keep up the good work!

From Sasha Pachev on Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 23:05:54 from 192.168.1.1

Sounds more like a mental breakdown in the last K. Note that while 5 K responds to mileage quite a bit, 3 K does not as much.

What I would do from this point is take your 4:24 mile more or less as a given (until you cash out on it close to 100%), and go from there. Bill Rogders was able to run 2:09 marathon off 4:18 mile. Ron Daws managed a 2:13 off 4:25 mile. No reason you could not hit a 2:15.

So focus on a sub-15:00 5 K. Then sub-30:00 10 K. Then sub-1:05 half. Then see what that gives you in the marathon.

1% of improvement is worth the most in the marathon. In all honesty, there is not a whole lot of difference between 8:30 and 9:00 3 K. Both make you just an OK but not that great collegiate runner. However if you go from 2:27 to 2:18 in the marathon (proportionate improvement), that takes your from a good local runner that picks up $1K on a lucky day to the Trials and being able to pick up $5 K per race on average.

From Tyler on Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 21:32:45 from 96.25.37.83

Hey I really appreciate the perspective, Sasha. It's easy to get bogged down and read too much into these shorter races. I'm going to give the 3k another go next week, but you're right, I'm not expecting a ton of improvement. I think if I started doing some specific speed it would drop quite a bit, but I don't see much point to that in the long run.

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