Notes
5th Seasons 8k in Cedar Rapids. Decided to race this at the last minute since I really need to get in the habit of running races again. I wanted to try to keep the race under control since I'm really not too sure of my fitness. I got out in 5:30 feeling comfortable with the hopes of maybe running close to 27:30-27:50 if things went alright. The next mile is mostly uphill and I was completely on my own after letting the lead groups pull away and pulling ahead of the rest of the field. I still felt strong uphill and ran 5:51 still feeling controlled. Then a downhill came and really jostled my back and stomach. This was the worst mile of the race. It is a turnaround so it is down and back up and I felt really uncomfortable through both. The downhill still feels like what caused the most issues as it was the only time I was passed in the race (1 person). The climb then didn't have much to it as I felt like I was trying to make sure nothing tightened up more. This was all really odd since at 2 miles I felt like the hill was some work but still felt like I was generally keeping a controlled pace and not really racing. When I got to 3 miles it was my slowest mile of the day 5:54 which is pretty rough since half of that mile was downhill. But I also felt like I had composed myself a bit and got back to a decent pace as mile 4 is all downhill but a more gradual downhill than in mile 3. I settled into a solid pace as some footsteps came up beside me but the person was never able to catch up to me. Ran a 5:30 feeling decent and saw Nutmeg shortly after the 4 mile mark and thought to myself that the race wasn't going great but also that I didn't really feel too bad. Slowly picked it up the last mile as I caught the person that passed me and 2 more (the top female was the next person ahead but I didn't catch her). Finished with a solid kick and probably close to 5:10-5:15 to end up right at 28:00.
The time was pretty depressing right away and still is a bit depressing afterwards. While I do feel like it was a notch below a race effort, I still feel like my back tightened up and the effort still ended up being quite hard for a time that is so so. It is also hard to see a lot of guys I have beat in my career still running 1-2 minutes faster than me.
I've tried to look at the flip side though, and aside from the 3rd mile I think I executed what I wanted to do pretty well. If I hadn't felt tight on that downhill and run a slightly better mile (5:30-5:40), I would be looking a time that is better than the last 2 times I ran the race in much better fitness. Which leads me to the fact that I have not run this race well in a long time. Even during very fit years this has been a race where people crush me that I beat in 5ks just a few months before by 30-45 seconds.
I still don't like the idea of running 28 minutes or being so far removed from those top runners, but I also know my training hasn't really been great this year. I've clearly stayed fit and feel comfortable starting at 5:30 but I think I'm going to have to get after training a bit harder if I want to get back to 5:15 or 5:00 feeling comfortable to start races.