up top, how do you feel about people questioning your sanity as they read you talk to yourself?
people are allowed to think whatever they want
how does it feel knowing that your mom placed higher in the race than you based on an age graded percentage?
I'm really happy for my mom and I knew she would run well and I think it's awesome that she gets to see what a great athlete she is. She's one of my biggest inspirations.
2016- 5th in 54:54
2017- 2nd in 53:38
2018- injured
2019-7th in 55:06
2020 and 21- COVID
2022- 10th in 56:30
2023- 11th in 56:20
Why are you going backwards and are you washed up?
From 2015 to 2017 I had the best training of my life. Years of consistent running and high volume and really high quality workouts. Then I had some injury years and years where I was working more and trying to figure out training on my own.
I think I was actually in really really good shape in 2020 and never got to show it. Then in 2021 I started to get into climbing and lifting more and played around with low mileage and speed. That sort of carried into 2022 and then I got on Strava and started restructuring things.
But I think it's easy to look at those results and be like, yeah I'm washed up but I really don't feel that way. Today was not a fast day and pretty much the whole field ahead of me ran positive splits for the race. My first two years I ran negative or even splits so it can be done. Today I positive split worse than most but there was some serious rain in the second half and I think even more than that, today the pack I wanted to run with was better on the day. I want to race the people I know and today the people I want to race with pulled me out on a pace that I couldn't sustain.
I attempted to run the race I wanted to run and I couldn't which I'm okay with. I'm happy with myself for trying. I don't think my finish time is reflective of my best possible time on the day, it's a reflection of trying to run with a faster pack, recognizing when I was getting in over my head, and then hanging on to the finish.
You seemed confident that you could break 56 minutes and you had a "modest" goal of improving your time by a minute every year. You only improved by 10 seconds.
I think there's a couple things there. One is that it's a slightly different course and I think a bit harder now. Two it was not an ideal day with the rain. And three, I'm still confident I'm in 55 minute shape but I recognized the morning of the race that I'm not running the race to break 56 minutes no matter what, I'm running the race to race people.
I want to be in that pack and feel competitive and I know the fitness I need to do that. For the most part, if you run high 54 or low 55 minutes on that course you'll be squarely in the top 10 and have people to run with. I can get there.
Do you have any other takeaways?
Even though I ran a less than ideal race, I still felt good out on the course. And a large part of that is friends and people in the community were out cheering me on and other than a later start time and warmer weather you really can't ask for anything more in a race. It's truly a community event and when I heard people cheering for me it meant so much. I feel more and more connected to where I live and the people here and more than ever this race felt like a reflection of that.
My number two takeaway is that my new residence is 5:30 pace. That's where my training has been building towards and that's where it lives now. In the past I've done well when I've focused on simple round numbers and for the next year it's all about accumulating miles at 5:30 pace.
82.5, 2:45, 3:24, 5:30, 11:00, 17:30. These are the paces.
Let's go get it.
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