Tag: Lake Park Series

Last week’s race was canceled due to extreme weather: lightning, flash floods, the whole deal. It was a drag because I really had expected to be able to run this race, but like most things it’s important to have a plan B in place: It rained a good portion of the morning so when the weather broke, I went for a run around the reservoir that engulfed my hometown some 120 years ago.

It’s been a week of really odd weather. Rain. Sun. Humidity. 3-seasons in each day odd, really. Where last Tuesday had me up and running at noon to get my 4+ miles in, today was a bit of a weak effort. I basically counted on this happening, despite the continuing odd weather. This time it paid off…which is good because I would have let myself down otherwise.

Taking a step back, away from the race recap, I’m working on a running goal of 1500 in 2018 – a 50% increase over my goal of a year ago. Now, I follow a bunch of cats on Strava who are not only killing that, 1500 miles is well in their rear view mirror. I have to work a lot harder to stay on task. Running is not something I particularly like nor does it come particularly easy to me. And, not without some consideration, I have a job that requires some consistency and presence. In other words, I have to take the opportunities when they’re presented and make a conscious effort to make those opportunities. There are only so many hours in a day to make it happen.

Fast forward a week. I went for a 5+ mile run Monday morning, went to fitness bootcamp at noon, and did another 5+ mile run Monday evening. I woke up today from a fitful sleep, just an anxious, sleepless evening. My legs and abductors were sore all day from the bootcamp work out. Basically, my body was giving me every reason not to succeed.  The humidity was high. The temperature was high. I hadn’t done very much today. All kinds of reasons to underperform for this race.

So, I decided to do what I did last week: Do a mile or so warm up, and go all out the first mile and see where that left me.  Duke wasn’t running this week, but I still took his admonition for a 24-minute race to heart.  And guess what. It turns out last week the course was about .04-mile longer than this week, and controlling for that, I ran pretty much the same race.  Technically, this one was faster – by two seconds a mile.  Last week I ran a 7:58-mile pace; this week a 7:57. My mile breaks were almost exactly the same:

Mile 1 – This week 7:23, Last Week 7:32
Mile 2 – This week 7:55, Last Week :7:54
Mile 3 – This week 8:36, Last Week: 8:28

The saving grace for weekly improvement? Mile 1. I was comparatively faster on mile 1 this week over last, than I was last week over this week on mile 3. That slightly shorter distance gave me a 20-second advantage over last week, but otherwise it was pretty much the same race. I’d likely have come in slightly faster had it measured out – I was accelerating downhill across the finish – but it was basically the same. I’m pretty sure the difference in mile 3 was not feeling the competition of having a friend to catch up front. My other running buddies are either ridiculously fast and had long since finished or were behind enough that I wasn’t feeling the pressure to push harder —- to my detriment.

So, there it is. Essentially the same race I ran two weeks ago. A little faster on the first mile, a little slower on the third. My heart rate was exactly the same for both. It doesn’t seem like much of an improvement, but since I’m really kind of searching for a positive here, I’ll take it.

RESULTS

July 24, 2018: 24:13
July 10, 2018: 24:35
July 25, 2017: 27:48
July 26, 2016: 25:57
July 12, 2016: 26:34
July 5, 2016: 27:32

 

Another mouthful.  The Lake Park Summer Fitness Running Series is a weekly 5k my running club holds on Tuesdays in July. It seems like an overly long title for a mid-week race, but whatever. It’s a legit race, probably moreso than the 52-Week 5k Series the club offers on Saturdays. It’s $5 to enter if you’re not a member, free to members, and it turns out CMS members really like free stuff.  As it happens, it was seeing this on the calendar that initially had me join the club in the first place: $20/yearly dues and if I did these races it paid for itself; also of note, the 52-week 5k price drops from $5 to $3 for members, so for a guy that was into running a truckload of races that year, it made all the sense in the world.

I seem to miss at least one of these races for some reason or another. Last week, it was a vacation. Last summer, I think I may have done one race coming back from falling down a mountain and it was pretty ugly – my time last summer was mere seconds slower than the first time I ran.   The first year I did three of them.

This is the third year I’ve been running to any magnitude. The first year, I didn’t know what to expect from running in summer, didn’t do enough and just rode the struggle bus through it.  Last summer, I spent June and most of July on the DL which left me out of condition and still unaware as to how to run in heat. This is the first time I’ve been able to actually put any real concerted effort into running in heat and humidity.

I can tell immediately that I’m not hydrating myself nearly enough, and I’m finding it’s my willingness to exert myself in less than ideal conditions that is getting in my way — like most things it’s the head that gets in the way more than anything else.

As it turns out, my head got in the way again this evening – just not for the whole race, so I guess that’s progress.

It’s a generally flat course – my GPS recorded a 2′ elevation gain overall: a loop around Worcester’s Lake Park before exiting the park, down a few blocks and back into the park to finish where it starts.  There’s generally a pretty good turnout – usually more than 70 or so runners – and the club does a small cook out featuring under cooked hot dogs and Polar seltzer water.  Hey, what do you want for “free?”  It’s truly a gem of a race, powered solely by an active group of volunteers.

I did a quick mile warm up which wasn’t pretty. I struggled through it at a moderate pace and I could feel every bit of my bootcamp workout from yesterday – nothing like jump squats to really let you know what for. The big difference tonight, beyond attempting to not let my head get in my way, was my running buddy Duke showed up at the last minute after having been stuck in traffic.  He challenged me to a 24-minute race, I said I was going to go all out for the first mile and see where that left me, but that I hadn’t seen sub-25 in some time.

And so it goes: I went out as fast as I could for the first mile and played it by ear from there.  Going back to the volunteers, it was super helpful that they were all out there at apparently strategic points to direct traffic, but it turns out just as I was wanting to quit I would see a friend of mine and obvi didn’t want to look like a wuss or that I couldn’t handle it in front of my friends…and of course once by them, I had to get a safe distance away so they couldn’t see me wussing…but then of course I’d see another friend.  If the antagonist getting in my way is my head, sometimes it’s helpful that circumstances conspire to use that antagonist against itself.

It wasn’t my best race, but it was my best race in a while. Basically, it’s what I needed: I got over the hot weather hump, I exerted myself, pushed myself and showed myself that performing in hot, humid weather doesn’t have to mean a half effort. I finished a full minute (and almost a half!) faster than any previous effort – it didn’t have to be my best race to be a good race. NOTE: My self time of 24:42 seems to be off from the official 24:35. I know I didn’t stop my watch as soon as I crossed the line but I didn’t think I had waited 7 seconds, so I’m not sure what’s up there.

RESULTS

July 10, 2018: 24:35
July 25, 2017: 27:48
July 26, 2016: 25:57
July 12, 2016: 26:34
July 5, 2016: 27:32