Cliff,

what happened to Clive in the race on Friday nite? Again? You were out in 12:36 at two miles and then what happened? It does not appear that you had to rush to bathroom as you ran the next 4/10ths of mile at 8:04 pace (that split is too quick given how long its takes you to go now), and in your log you talked about various parts of your body going numb (that is not normal, that is abby-normal) so did you slow from this abby-normal reaction? And then even though this time no trip to the ER your "camped out" by the fire truck since based upon how you felt you must have been concerned that you were "close"?

Is there a pattern emerging here (throwing aside the 2 mile race you ran recently since that is too short of race to factor into this). In the cooler weather, you were forced to heed the call of nature in an 8k and 10k. Was your Lungstrong performance an outlier or? And in the warmer weather, you had the ER episode last year and the episode today (might be a good idea to run w/your HR monitor in races now and evaluate results vs. your workouts -- I don't think your workouts suffer in the same way so it could be race specific, the race itself (and perhaps the fear in the back of your mind about the possibility of having to go during the race?) and/or expectations you've created for yourself are creating a higher level of stress for the race (so perhaps your not relaxed to start because of this and you have trouble relaxing during the race)? What did you do leading up to Lungstrong (the week leading up, and your routine the day before and morning of the race?)? From what I can see your workouts are not declining which means its not over-training or any cumulative stress/sleep issues.

I dunno.  I think I just haven't eaten that well, haven't slept well at all, have too much stress in my life, and get worn out from my job that I'm tired for evening races v. crack-o-dawn events.  Or something else.

It just wasn't there.  I wanted to hit 1mi in 6:00-6:05, then 2mi in no slower than 12:10.  About 0.5-0.6mi in, I was on 6:02 pace and it felt fairly uncomfortable.  I locked onto that feeling, but still passed the mile split in 6:18.  Pressed a bit on the next mile and couldn't do any better than another 6:18 or so.  No chance at sub-19 at that point, and I lost my motivation to "sustain the pain" (i.e., I slacked off a bit, then picked it up some but not to anything approaching 6:00/mi level).  Meh.

Who else is in for the Right Moves For Youth Twilight 5k this FRI evening?  Relatively benign course ... beer post-race ... charming CLT runners ...

Clive needed me in that race the other day... I'll bet he would have run a minute or two faster if he thought I was close behind.

 

I'm heading over to Cary this weekend to run the NCRC Invitational Half Marathon. It's the RRCA half marathon state championship. Hoping to keep it under 1:38 but about 40% of the race is on non-paved roads so I might bomb.

Richard, you should have given a heads up to Clive about this NCRC 1/2 Marathon as it would have been Karma for him to run it -- did you see the address where this race starts at (in Cary)....

Location: The race uses roads, trails and greenways of Cary and of Umstead State Park. Due to construction on Old Reedy Creek Road, we have to adjust the start and finish lines, but the race will start on Weston Parkway near 3001 Weston Parkway and will finish in the parking lot nearby.