The challenge of running back-to-back races of (essentially) the same distance is trying to evaluate them objectively. I’d love to say that after 7 weeks of building my mileage and doing 1-2 workouts per week that I crushed the pace I ran during my Thanksgiving 8K. However, Saturday’s 5-mile race was run at 7:18 pace or :06 per mile slower.
NOTE: I’m now one of those runners that uses what their
watch tells them as gospel. There was a time when if I ran a race, I’d believe
that the events were their advertised distance. But I now take the opposite
approach and assume they’re just approximations. For example, after the 8K my
watch said 4.89 miles, even though 8K = 4.97 miles. After running the 5-mile
race my watch said 5.07 miles. Not that my watch is correct, but at least it
was the same in both races. If I assume the courses were the correct length,
then my 8K pace would’ve been overstated and my 5-mile pace would’ve been understated.
But let’s forget about the watch – for now. I’m happy with
how I raced on Saturday. This was a fairly tough out-and-back course that started
at the Guthrie and followed the River Road south before turning around. That
means the first mile was downhill and most of the second mile was flat before
climbing to the turn around point and repeating those hills in the opposite
direction. Temps were just under 20 degrees and there was a slight first half headwind.
Another change I’ve adopted – in addition to believing my
watch to be the gospel – is to just run by feel once the gun goes off. There
was a time when I’d take my splits at every mile and then spend the next minute
or two analyzing them and projecting my finish time. Now I try to stay more
present and monitor things like my breathing, my pace, and how relaxed I am. Mentally,
I like it a lot better, but if you have a specific goal in mind, you have no
idea if you’re on pace or not. You don’t get that immediate feedback at the
mile marks. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Perhaps you’d run the same exact time
either way. I don’t know, I’ve never tested it.
Anyway, I said I’m happy with how I raced and that’s because
I stayed engaged during the whole race. I was constantly monitoring the things
I could control. It was a pretty small race with less than 300 people. I think
after about 1.5 miles I was in the same place that I finished. I ran back and
forth with one guy for a few miles. After being about 10-15 feet behind him at
3 miles I caught up to him in the next half mile. I think that woke him up a
little as he pulled away and put 25 seconds on me the rest of the way. Of
course, he ended up winning my age group and I was 2nd.
Back to the watch. I’m currently using a COROS Pace 2, along
with their app. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of data being tracked –
things like running performance as a percentage, Load Impact, Fatigue, Base
Fitness, etc. I’m still trying to get a feel for all of it. I constantly click
on the little question marks that provide more information trying to understand
what an “optimized” fatigue level off 44 means or an “excellent” Running
Performance of 112%. Can I really trust when my watch says I’m above the recommended
Load Impact range of 594-1081?
Getting back to using my watch to compare my 8K and 5-mile
races. Here are a few of the key metrics that stood out to me.
Metric 8K 5M
Avg Effort Pace 7:06 7:03
Running Performance 119% 112%
Training Load 171 160
Elevation Gain 164 266
Overall, the race served its purpose. It proved that
Thanksgiving wasn’t a fluke and that I’m still on the right path and motivated to
work towards my 2023 goals.
RECAP OF WEEK 1/8 – 1/14
Sunday – Day off
Monday – AM: Strength, PM: 4 miles easy
Tuesday – 16K skate ski
Wednesday – 6-mile fartlek (1/2/3/2/1/2/3/2/1:00 “on” w/ 1:00
“off”) 1:00 run at 5K, 2:00 run at 10K and 3:00 run at HMP
Thursday – AM: Strength, PM: 5 miles easy
Friday – 5-mile run w/ strides
Saturday – 8 miles total, including 5-mile race
Summary: 28 miles of running, 0 miles of biking, 16K of
skiing and 2 strength training
Quote of the day;
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Unknown
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