Notes
My 3rd El Scorcho in a row and this year I dropped to the 25K from last year's 50K because I wanted to make sure that I could go into my NYC Marathon training cycle fresh and recovered rather than beat up from a 50K. My 25K race went pretty good. My goals were:
- Finish on the podium, check
- Not to get beat by more than 4 minutes by the winner, check
- Beat previous course record of 1:37:XX, check
- 6:10-ish pace, check
Ended up 3rd overall with a 1:35:42 which is 6:09/mile. Winner ran 1:32:37. Temps were 78F with the dew point at 67F. I ran well for the first 3x5K laps then I had stomach cramps for the last two laps which made it a painful finish. I quit driking water in the middle of lap 4 I just couldn't take it any more. I passed the 4th place finisher in the last lap and he's a 4:03 miler and 70 minute half marathoner. It felt pretty good. Swag was a really nice Solomon backpack, another solomon bag that everyone in the top 10 got, a pair of some wicking socks and a water bottle. Pretty nice stuff.
After the race I was glad I didn't do the 50K not because of legs but because of stomach issues. Last year I had stomach cramps after 6 laps and I had to stop at the port-o-potties twice a lap for the last 3 laps. This time it was no different in terms of frequency but at least I was already done with the race by the time the issues really hit. This whole midnight start seriously messes you up! I'm definitely sticking with the 25K distance in the future for this race, the 50K is just not for humans.
5K Splits:
18:31 85%HRR 5:56/mile
19:00 86%HRR 6:05/mile
19:10 86%HRR 6:09/mile
19:25 85%HRR 6:13/mile This is where you can see my HR was dropping, I could not concentrate on the running any more.
19:35 83%HRR 6:17/mile