11/11

 make a wish.

I've been pretty productive the past week despite not blogging much. 

The big event of the weekend is the Richmond 8k. My first and best time on the course was in 2018 when I ran 25:40. It was a bit of a shock to run that fast when I was running a ton of miles and not doing many workouts. Also my races afterwards were pretty lackluster. Anyway, a year later I had a rough go of it and ran like 26:50 on a cold day when I never really felt very good. I had a cold and a minor injury flare up in the weeks before so it was disappointing but not hugely surprising.

Going into this year's race, I think I have a good shot of breaking 26 minutes. The thing about Richmond is that the last mile is a screaming downhill. It's absurd. When I ran 25:40 I came through 4 miles in 21 flat (5:15 mile pace) and ran the last .95 miles in 4:40. About a month ago I ran a 4 mile race on a cross country course in 21:58. So, I think it's pretty reasonable that after a month of good training and switching over the roads, I should be in shape to break 26. 

Regardless of how the race goes, I'm happy with how the Fall has gone. Back in August I felt really speedy and quick over short distances and I thought that would translate to some really exciting workouts later on. Turns out, there are no shortcuts and you need to run really hard workouts to run impressive times. 

To speak in more concrete terms, my benchmark for good good fitness is how much work and how easy can I make 5 minute mile pace feel. Probably my best workout of all time was 5x1600m repeats on the track with about 4 minutes rest between and I started at 5:01 and worked down to 4:51 for the last rep. Or maybe it was 4:53. But I knew I was in great shape and I haven't really matched that workout in about 4 years. But, at the same time, when I ran that workout, I had done a lot of work at 5 minute pace or faster building up to it. Since then, I haven't really attacked that pace the way I did that season. I've tried to get cute by doing things like running a ton of miles, or running a lot at 5:20 pace, or running shorter distances at 800m pace. My goals and training partners have also lacked consistency. Anyway, the plan in December is to do the thing. Really focus on 5 minute mile pace and also doing workouts on the 10 mile course, which is my ultimate goal. 

Again, I don't think this Fall's training has been bad. I'm in good shape and I'm really confident about doing this training so I've set myself up well. I guess I was just a bit over optimistic in thinking that I could hit those peak workouts by focusing on other areas of fitness and then just show up and hit a dinger on the first try. It's gonna take some attempts. But I don't think it's far off.

thats enough rambles for today