Saturday, July 17, 2010

Umm what just happened?

Thu: 8 miles w/ 3 x ~200-250m strides mixed in, 53:31; some light core
Fri: 6 miles, 42:50
Sat: 3 mile w/u, 20:48; 5 mile race, 26:06; 5 mile c/d, 39:02; 1.5 mile jog to bus ~15 mins.

Difficult to explain this race, came in having done pretty much the same training/times in tempo's as I did prior to the same race last year (27:28). About the only differences this time around were that a) I wore flats this year, and b) it was less humid. Aside from that I have no idea how I just ran that time. Definitely think the mile markers were off (not a chance I ran 4:37 to open, even if it was downhill). In terms of how the race felt, I got out steady, in and around 25th place or so. Following the downhill stretch I was a little isolated, but once we turned up the hill around 1.5 miles and into the wind I started to pull in some of the guys in front of me. Pushed up the hill and hit the 2nd mile in ~5:27. 3rd mile was all uphill and into the wind so just tucked in and felt I recovered somewhat (5:43 - think this was a bit long but not by much). Pushed on the 4th mile as the group Enda was in was about 10secs in front of me. Passed through the 4th mile in 4:57 (again, don't think this is right) and closed pretty strong, although the watch said 5:20 for the last one. Felt pretty strong the whole way round, didn't really have a bad patch, although tucking in the 3rd mile allowed me to regather and finish strong. Very pleased and very very surprised with the time, although it seems everyone had a big improvement on last year (top 5 all under 24 vs. winning time of 24:14 last year), so maybe the conditions were a lot more favourable.
Got in a nice easy cooldown despite the onset of a downpour midway through. Happy with the day's work I was getting the shuttle bus back to town afterwards, but after moving a grand total of 25 yards in 20 mins decided to run out of the park despite the rain for the extra 1.5 miles at the end.
After that run and the birthday during the week, I think I deserve a couple of pints tonight. Happy days!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

nice running man. you on the juice? how you gonna go out and run 26 mins with such little training.

Tarpy said...

nice one. best time in 5 years?

Eamonn said...

Really don't know where that came from. Johnson was 5 secs in front of me, but should have been more. Besides Franklin (which is short of 5) freshman year that's a PB