Training Week 5 and a 10-Mile Race

74¾ miles for the week

M – 6¼ miles recovery run, average pace 8:52 mpm, 81°F at 4AM [Dow/B-S/Ol]
M PM - missed
Tu – 9.5 miles with 4 at LT, average pace 7:09 mpm, wanted to run 6:20s for the 4 miles at LT, but instead ran an average 6:35, 78°F at 4AM [2xDow]
W AM - 8¼ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:24 mpm, 76°F at 4AM [S-B/Dow/2xB-S/Ol]
W PM – 9 miles general aerobic, ran each mile a few seconds faster from 7:10 to 6:48 for the first 8 and the ninth mile in 6:18 just to prove to myself I can run a mile at LT pace, average pace 6:54 mpm, 78°F at 7PM dusk to stars [B’Wood track]
Th – 6¾ miles recovery run, average pace 8:19 mpm,
69°F at 4AM FIRST sub-70 run in 167 days, since April 27th [Dow/2xB-S]
F - 11 miles medium long run fairly easy, average pace 7:49 mpm, 82°F starting at 9:30AM, sunny [SeaC/NTrail-2x2M/SeaC] The schedule had 13 miles, but I cut this run to 11 to be ready for Sunday’s race.
Sa – 7 miles recovery run very easy, average pace 8:57 mpm, 83°F at 12:30, nice sunny day [SeaC/Ntrail/SeaC]
Su – 17 miles with a 10-mile race, race at 6:25 mpm, 6 miles after the race at 7:42 mpm, Houston Hobby Airport had 70°F to 71°F for the race with the dewpoint in the low 60s, starting at 7AM (Ellington Field weather station was OOC that morning but at 07 Saturday morning, Ellington ran 2 degrees higher than Hobby) [UofH Clear Lake] The Pfitz schedule has the first 20-mile long run instead of a race.

Sunday’s 10-miler was my first race since July. My 10-mile PR is pretty soft, so I was disappointed I didn’t reach it. I can’t really complain about the temperature. Even though the morning temperature was about five degrees warmer than average, it was still one of the three coolest runs I’ve done since April. I was shooting for 6:15 miles; here’s what I did:

6:08, 6:23, 6:20, 6:26, 6:25
6:27, 6:30, 6:33, 6:31, 6:26

Yep. Not a single mile near 6:15. Chip time was 1:04:08. I’m not happy about the 6:30s in the second half of the race. I don’t have any excuses for slowing. There was plenty motivation to run harder. I was in sight of a couple Tornado teammates, SimC and MiguelL, throughout the race and during mile 7 I was passed by a couple rivals from another club. But I let them just drift on ahead of me. After I finished, I felt pretty fresh within a minute or two. I guess I just wasn’t ready for a “race-effort”.

The race was great. The mile markers all seemed accurate, all of the water stations were well staffed, and I enjoyed the course with views of Clear Lake and NASA's Johnson Space Center. There was more than enough post-race food, even after my extra 6-miles. I had an enjoyable time seeing all of the Houston runners.

This week the training schedule has a cutback to 72 miles. But the Strider’s half-marathon is next week, so I’m altering the schedule to make this a high mileage week (in the 80s?) and then next week will be near 70 miles again. The half-marathon used to be a 20K. My 20K PR is a 6:16.3 pace. If we have favourable weather (anything near average) I’d like to run near 6:15 pace or better.