RACE EVALUATION

Can’t believe I forgot to mention Sonya Decker’s name yesterday in the list of people I’ve interview. She was breathing down my neck with a 29:46. It was her first time sub-30 in 10 years and good enough to win the Master’s division.

After my last race, I mentioned the questionnaire that I fill out after racing. I’ve been kind of hit-or-miss with it in the past. I’m trying to be more vigilant this year, so here it is for Sunday’s race;

Name of race: Human Race
Date and Time: 3/18/07, 1:20 PM
Location: St. Paul, Summit Ave. out-and-back
Distance: 8K
Competition: Road Race - MN 8K championship
Weeks since last race: 7 weeks
Weather and course conditions: 30-35 degrees, Mod S/SE wind, 70% headwind
Goals: Time - Beat last year's 29:15, possible sub-29. Non-time - Execute race strategy.
Race strategy and possible mishaps and contingencies: Get a good start, focus more internally and use the downhill during the 2nd mile. Stay out of traffic around Wm. Mitchell. Gain energy from the people heading out. Drive the hill in the 4th mile and then use the downhill from Snelling Ave. on.
Mental preparation strategy: Relaxation exercises and visualized race/strategies.
Duration of warm-up and cool-down: 3M w/up and 4M c/d.
Arousal level (1 low, 10 high) on the starting line: 6
Finish time: 29:33. Overall pace: 5:57.
Place: 104th out of 947 overall (11.0%). 102nd out of 593 men (17.2%), 10th out of 66 (15.2%) in 30-34 age group.
Splits: Didn't wear a watch; heard 5:58, 11:50 (5:52), 17:54 (6:04), 29:33 (11:39)
Things I did well in the race:
Did a fairly good job executing my thought process.
Didn't panic when I was all by myself during the 2nd mile.
Things I need to work on:
While my thought process was good, my visualization could use some work.
I wonder if things would have been better or worse had I tagged along with the guy who passed me at 1 mile. He closed the gap to the pack ahead of me while I got caught in 'no-man's land'.
Now that the sidewalks are clear I need to add in some strides.
Work on diet. No more eating all the leftover pizza in the office and no more 'handfuls' of candy.
Get back into core strengthening.
Performance rating (1-10). How close did I come to what I was capable of running that day? 7
Mentally playback the best parts of the race. Check here___x___
Other comments about the race:
McMillan calculates my 1/27 half marathon at a 29:59 8K, so I'm making progress.
Felt like something was missing, like another gear or leg speed, which makes sense because I haven't been doing strides and my hill workouts haven't been as intense as last year.

Quick recap of my recent training; Last Friday I ran a 10 mile progression run on the treadmill, dropping the pace from 8:40 down to 6:40. Saturday the girls wanted to come along, so they took turns being pushed in the stroller for a total of 7 miles. Maybe not the best idea the day before a race, but the pace/effort was really easy. Those runs gave me 50 for the week.

With warmup and cooldown, I ended up with 12 miles on Sunday. Yesterday was an easy 6 mile recovery. This morning was an example of what’s wrong with my out-and-back routes. About 4 miles into a 10 mile run my right Achilles started to ache, so I turned around and cut the run down to 8 miles. That helped, but I still had to run 4 miles with a sore Achilles. I guess that’ll teach me to go from tempo runs at 6:30 pace to racing at 6:00 pace. I’ll wear the sock tonight and see how things feel in the morning.

In contrast to yesterday’s quote of the day;

“Second place is not defeat. It is a stimulation to get better. It makes you even more determined.” – Carlos Lopes

[Hmm, if second place makes you even more determined, what does 104th place make you?]