Balancing tech with gut…

Race season is starting up for me and with that, learning a couple of new things. On a quick recap for The Dry Creek Striders, we’ve been at a few races already and we’ve enjoyed two overall wins, three podium finishes, and an age group win. At the Beat the Heat 5K last weekend, Collin Knaub earned both the win and a new course record.

Some of us ran at the Lucky Brew 5K in Windsor in March. When we arrived, the conditions were windier than had been forecast and while the course was flat and fast, there’s no real way to get around wind. Factoring all of that in, I went in expecting a 19:45 and ended up with a 19:20. Buoyed by this success, I figured another month of track work plus mileage would mean I could possibly dip under 19:00 at Beat the Heat. I ended up in 19:26. What happened? The course had a little more elevation gain and loss than Lucky Brew but I also was overly reliant on my watch.

My Garmin will show my per-mile pace but I’ve learned, especially when aiming for a very specific time, that when changing speed, the pace my watch displays takes a few moments to match what I’m actually running. I went out quickly to get ahead of the pack, settled in, and by the quarter mile point, I was showing a 6:00/6:05 mile pace, which is good enough for sub-19:00. I felt okay and I was ready to believe I could feel okay at that speed. In retrospect I should have known that it felt too good. By the time I realized it, my watch had leaped up to 6:35 pace and I was going uphill.

My first mile ended up being 6:25, which is just barely sub-20:00 pace. I knew I shouldn’t try to get it all back in the next mile so I didn’t go all-out and with more incline, I ended up with a 6:27 second mile. At this point, any thought of sub-19:00 was toast unless I was prepared to drop a 5:20 third mile. Even in the desperation of in-race-thinking, I knew this was not reasonable—my time at the Mile High Mile last summer was 5:41 and that was in an open race, not after having run two miles already. I did run mile three in 6:09 and got across the line in the aforementioned 19:26. Considering the difference in the courses, it was roughly comparable to Lucky Brew.

What lessons do I take away? Even if I am at the edge of sub-19:00, it would be close and I’ll need more training to get there. Probably more importantly, it was brutally reinforced that pacing is tough, even at professional levels. I’ll spend some time on the track and treadmill running my planned race pace and perhaps that will allow my body to have a better sense of my speed. In my next race, without going bonkers, I’ll know that 6:00/6:05 should feel a little more challenging than I thought. I’ll still need the watch to give me a reality check, but it will help counter any lag the watch is having. On to more training, and the next race…