I am one with the levee and the levee with me

Crescent City Classic 10k

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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:	4.70	Month:	20.70	Year:	21.70
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:						42.20

Sat, Mar 31, 2018

Race: Crescent City Classic 10k (6.214 Miles) 00:32:25, Place overall: 13, Place in age division: 2

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
13.80	0.00	0.00	6.21	20.01

Usually I'm pretty good about estimating my fitness for races, but I got it wrong today. I figured I was in about 31:30 shape given recent workouts and the favorable conditions on the course. My primary goal for the race was to beat all the local runners, which is worth $300 all or nothing. The weather was unusually awesome, with about 60F and low humidity with hardly any wind.

My game plan was to run with the elite women for 5k and push the final 5k if I felt good. Usually the women go out in about 16:00, and the local guys are usually in that pack. I should be able to close in 15:45 fairly comfortably off that pace, and that is almost always good enough for the local win.

The pace was perfect through 3 miles. I had straight 5:08s on my Garmin for 1-3, although the pack ran bad tangents and we were 16:08 through 5k. I did a self-assessment at mile 3 and everything was feeling good. I stuck to my plan and ratcheted down the pace. The lead woman and the rest of the pack began to drop back.

One local guy made a surge and caught me a little before mile 4. I've underestimated him before, so I decided to work with him for a bit and try a bigger move in mile 6. Mile 4 was 5:04 on my watch.

The bad thing was that the small drop in pace didn't feel good. He made a surge around 4.5 and all of sudden I was hanging on for dear life. He managed to get a little separation before mile 5 and I couldn't respond. 5:09 on the Garmin.

I didn't run mile 6 well and gave up a few more seconds than necessary, but I was beaten. 5:20. He continued to pull away and ended up 13 or 14 seconds up on me, about 10 of that in mile 6. I may have managed closer to 5:10 if I'd focused a little better, but there really wasn't much left in the tank.

I feel bad about losing this one, but I'm not sure there was anything I could do different. Hoping it's just a case of marathon legs not handling a faster pace. The VDOT for this does point to a 2:28-high marathon, which is pretty much my goal. Not panicking yet.

PM - Added 6 stroller miles with Rylie. 7:08 avg.

Mizuno Ekiden Miles: 14.00	Triumph 3 Miles: 6.00

Night Sleep Time: 0.00	Nap Time: 0.00	Total Sleep Time: 0.00

Comments

From Jason D on Tue, Apr 03, 2018 at 11:47:12 from 141.210.128.230

This is a good deal faster than your half a few weeks ago, and I think you are right about marathon legs. Usually it means not being able to run well in a 5k, but I think (and I don't have a ton of evidence to prove this) that the more marathon fit and specific you are that that distance increases to 10k or even the half marathon (where people have trouble moving much faster than just a notch under fast marathon pace).

From Tyler on Wed, Apr 04, 2018 at 07:44:52 from 144.46.104.12

Thanks, Jason. I've really not done much fast stuff in the last few months, so objectively this result isn't too surprising.

You know, I've been thinking that even though you don't need to be in 5k/10k PR shape for a good marathon, having those systems well developed is important to reaching your potential. Daniels puts a large VO2max block at the beginning of his marathon cycles. I believe Tinman advocates for 10k training outside of marathon builds. And Canova has a good amount of faster reps at the beginning of his programs. I think it's okay that I'm slower at 10k than I want to be at the moment, but I suspect that improving my 5k/10k fitness going into my next marathon cycle will do a lot for improving marathon pace.

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