Team Championships Recap
If I have not made this abundantly clear to you (I certainly have to Alpha and Beast). We race waaaaay too much. I will not let this happen to me next year. Promise. My last team-oriented race (will explain in a minute) was Saturday … NYRR Team Championships 5 miler.
For about 3 minutes it was a humbling experience, but then I let the ego go and went with it. For most of the summer I have sat in the (big) 1st corral for Central Park races. Club Champs is a different ballgame. The corrals are maybe 1/3 of the size of a typical NYRR race. So when Beast said he expected to be in the 2nd corral, I could hear the old ego “pop”. Beast runs 5:30ish range for 5 miles. Alpha sat firmly in the 1st corral … dude runs like a 2-minute mile. Sick.
Anyway, I picked up my bib and saw a color I have never seen before … baby blue with a 5xxx number. I laughed and asked the volunteer how the breakdown worked. She smiled as she just got ripped into by a less courteous runner (not from CPTC) for giving him a yellow bib. My fastest pace over 3 miles is 6:47 (4-miler), which earned me a stellar 5th corral. It’s what I get for being slow.
My attitude toward the race was not terrific. Aside from very much wanting the team to do well, I would have rather done my own thing. But I am a team player, love CPTC and know how important it is to also have a full complement of Orange on the course. Like the Run for Central Park 4-miler a couple of weeks ago, Club Champs would be a confidence rebuilder, tempo run for moi. Why? Going all out would be counter-productive to the long run 24 hours later. So the mission was simple … go out relaxed, keep it there and if things really go well, push it. Live to fight another day.
Results: 35:58 (7:11 pace). Meh. With only one other 5-miler under my belt (2009), yesterday was a massive PR by ~7 minutes. I forgot to set the watch for mile splits (see how focused I was about this race), but when I glanced down periodically: mile 1 (7:02), mile 2 (7:02), mile 4 (7:13 – Cat Hill). Our coach saw me just after Cat Hill and screamed “Get busy, El. Get busy. Pass some people.” While I turned it up slightly (up on forefoot) I wasn’t feeling terrific during the last mile, but teammates who finished ahead gathered around and screamed at me. I found a burst in the last 400m and passed a bunch of people.
It was a decent effort. Honestly, it’s probably the best effort + result combo since April. I was :08 per mile faster than the 4-miler 2 weeks ago. Most importantly, I felt like I held enough in check for a decent long run on Sunday. Next up on the race card:
- ING NYC Marathon Tune Up (18 miler) (prep for you know what)
- Fifth Avenue Mile (total ego trip and I am digging it)
- Grete Waitz (yes that one) HM Gallop (prep for you know what – racing my guts out for this as it’s the measuring stick for November)
- NYCM
That’s it for the remainder of 2010. Nothing else. 100% focused and selfish.
Total with warm up and cool down: 10 miles. Below are a couple of pics, courtesy of Sue Pearsall, CPTC’s resident photog to the stars.
Sunday Long Run
In NYC, we are spoiled. We have the benefit of running in Central Park at our leisure. However, like anything, you can get bored of it if used too much. Right now I am deathly sick of Central Park. 98.4% of my training and racing takes place in CP. The thought of another long run either on the roads or the bridle would make me stab myself. (Note: last Sunday’s 16 in CP was different in the sense that it was under quasi-race conditions).
Therefore, I was determined to switch it up. I planned to hit the Westside Highway (WSH). It has the following benefits: not CP, flat, along the Hudson River with a view of New Jersey (snicker ) and DIFFERENT. For me at least, so much of training is between the ears and if you give the senses something different the physical becomes a speed bump and not Everest. To get to WSH I needed to pass thru CP, so I did that for about 5-6 miles before I hit the running/bike path. For the directionally-challenged (umm, me), WSH is about as rudimentary as you can get … go South until you run into the Statute of Liberty, then curve left around South Street Seaport and cruise up the East Side along FDR (the latter route is the way home from Tuesday track night).
Not a lot of picture painting to do here. The neighborhoods traversed (along the side) include Upper West Side, Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown West, Chelsea, Battery Park/Lower Manhattan (old World Trade Center). I used 2 GUs and 2 Gatorades. Hydration was not really an issue as it was relatively cool … or at least not terribly humid. With no shade on the river, I got baked by the sun though. At the appropriate point (12 miles), I reversed course to head home. One interesting anecdote, none of the fountains worked around Battery Park so I had to run into a grocery store for a Gatorade. I sucked it down and looked up at a familiar building … old employer’s office (Merrill Lynch). The last time I was in that building I was a good 40lbs heavier and could not run to the bathroom in under 10 minutes. Funny how life changes.
My marathon guidance/plan called for a healthy dose of miles at marathon goal pace … 12 to be exact. After the race yesterday, attempting 12 miles at 7:30 pace seemed excessive and silly. Also, I think it’s too early in the plan to start hammering at any kind of race pace for too long. As a compromise (cop-out?) I finished off the final 4 miles at slightly quicker than MGP (7:36, 7:19, 7:24, 7:22). Total for the morning (drumroll ….) 18 miles @ 8:17 overall pace. The bulk of the miles were 8:20s-30s. I was very pleased with the effort considering yesterday, of which I feel better about after the fact since it did not interfere with the long run. Although, I expect the legs to be angry on Monday and probably Tuesday too. Still, for 18 miles I felt damn good. On to the next one.
28 miles in 24 hours. A whole lotta miles.