Notes
Capital Pursuit 10 mile, 5th, 53:33
Mile splits (ish)- 5:06, 5:15, 5:40, 5:29, 5:17, 5:23, 5:10, 5:14, 5:15, 5:08
Sheesh. Bad one this morning. Going in I thought the worst case would be a PR (51:45) but wow I got nowhere close to that. My plan going in was to try to run the 1st 3 to 4 miles pretty conservative but still quick enough that I could give myself a chance at sub 50 with a good close the last few miles
Got out pretty well the first couple miles I thought, let Austin, Cody, and Blake go and went through the mile in about 5:05. The 2 through 4 splits are all messed up bc of downtown GPS and the markers on the course were placed incorrectly so I'm just kinda guessing on those splits. When we turned N out of downtown to start the climb up Keo Way I was feeling ok, there was a decent wind out of the NW which made it a solid headwind the whole climb. Didn't worry about pace up the hill and was just trying to run an effort that felt right. About halfway up the climb an RWE dude who I didn't recognize passed me, so just tried to key off him and keep him close the rest of the way up the climb
Got through the climb and up into Drake and tried to pick up the pace and re-passed the RWE guy, but I just didn't have the legs to maintain the pace and gap him. He just hung behind me for a couple miles while I was stuck at that 5:10- 5:20 pace. Going down Kingman at maybe just before we hit the 5th mile split I put in a little surge and could tell I got a gap on him, but my gap was short lived as he passed me shortly after. Was right at 27:00 at the 5 mile sign. When he passed me he did not stop, by the time we turned onto Polk Blvd the gap between him and I was significant and growing
Polk Blvd with about 3 miles to go was where I put the hammer down on Tyson to close in 4:43, 5:53, 4:45 last year, but I just didn't have the legs to do the same today. Ingersoll and Grand were all downhill and with the wind into downtown, and I tried to use those to my advantage to get the pace moving along but I just wasn't able. Was stuck in that 5:15 pace for 8 and 9 and then was able to pick it up marginally on the last mile which has the steepest downhill
Hit the finish in 53:33 for 5th pretty disappointed
I'm not really sure what happened, my legs and breathing felt ok but I just couldn't take that effort to the next level that's necessary in a race. I started conservatively until we got through Keo and I wasn't able to get the pace rolling after that, I was stuck. Workouts and training have been going well, I ran a 40:00 steady state at 5:19 pace a couple weeks ago and that definitely felt like I was able to push harder in that than I was today. I haven't raced when fit in quite a while, December at Club XC was the last time. So hopefully just a case of needing to get my racing instincts sharpened up again? We'll see how the next few weeks go. Might need to just try to break 2:20 at Indy and then take a shot at the OTQ next year