“Pleasantly surprised” would basically sum up the results from this race. After running 6:03 pace for a flat, fast 5k two weeks ago, I though 30:30 would be an aggressive enough goal. Mainly I wanted to place in the top-3 of my age-group. That was even one of the goals I wrote down when I first contacted Matt to coach me at the beginning of the year.
As mentioned yesterday, the weather was awesome. It was probably 65 degrees. The only thing I had wrong was the overcast skies. It was actually very sunny, but with the low humidity it was very pleasant.
Splits for this race really can tell a really goofy story if you don’t know the course. At least half of the first mile is downhill. It’s one of those perfect down hills too. It’s more than gradual, so you actually feel it, but it’s less than steep, so you’re not putting on the brakes the whole time. Since the course starts and ends in the same spot, you have to make up for the downhill somewhere. That occurs right after the 4 mile mark with a steep hill that takes about 75 seconds to get up before leveling out to a gradual hill for another 45 seconds. With that said, I ran 5:33, 6:03, 6:08, 5:56, 6:22 for a 30:02. Good enough for 40th overall and 3rd in my age-group. Results can be found on Badgerland Striders.
Last year I ran 29:42, but I was right at the peak of my season, having already raced 11 times in the previous 3 months. Since Grandma’s marathon, I’ve raced 3 times this year. While I’m happy with the time and age-group place, I still have some work to do. I was just hanging on the last 1.5 miles and I didn’t really respond when people passed me. I think that’ll come around with more speed work and more racing.
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4 comments:
Nice job Chad! I think your attitude change in the past few weeks has had alot to do with your improved racing. I just looked at these results this morning and didn't even think to look for your name - my bad. Take care and keep up the solid good work!
-Peter
Thanks Peter. You're totally right regarding the attitude change. A positive attitude makes a world of difference.
I should mention that I'm 30:04 in the results. 30:02 was my "chip".
Nice job - this is great. And even if the first mile is downhill, that's quick.
If you're anything like me, you're thrilled with the time because you ran so much faster than you thought you would... but then a little while later (maybe the same day, maybe later that week), you start wondering if maybe you could have shaved off 3 seconds somewhere in there to put yourself under 30:00 :-) But if you're not like that, I don't want to raise the subject!
I hope this means bigger and better things to come!
Thanks Alison. If I had never broken 30 before, yeah I'd be pissed. In the grand scheme of things 29:59 vs. 30:02 is not a big deal.
I was just so pumped to have a decent race after struggling all summer.
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