Winter time is the perfect season for building a mileage base. After a break from the fall cross country and road racing season, it's time to re-charge and start building that endurance up with long runs, workouts, and overall mileage. However the season comes with challenges like shorter days and bad weather (of course if rarely gets worse than rain and 50 degrees in the Bay Area). In my case, I also have to balance training with my skiing habit as we head up to Kirkwood to hit the slopes most weekends this time of year. I do have access to a treadmill up there, and if it's not dumping snow (which it often is) I can get out on the roads for a run, but that's assuming I'm not completely trashed from a long day of skiing. This winter, instead of trying to force myself to log decent mileage before heading out to ski, or worse after skiing, I decided to shift from being a weekend warrior to a week day warrior!
Without having the weekends to log long runs and workouts, I had to be disciplined about scheduling a primary workout, long run, and secondary workout on the week days. This usually meant Tuesday workout, Wednesday long run, then Friday secondary workout. Once I got in the routine, my training really built on itself and everything fell into place. I ran my first 60 mile week in almost a year in mid January, then proceeded to run at least 60 for six out of seven weeks through the end of February (60, 65, 61, 71, 70, 50, 66). My workouts - which were mostly on the track - included a mix of longer, steady pace type intervals, 5k pace work, and even some speed. My legs didn't feel fresh for a lot of the workouts, but I almost always felt strong. There were a couple workouts where I felt really tired early on, but I could drop shoulders, relax my stride, and still make a quality session out of it.
I decided my focus for the upcoming season would be the 5k distance. That didn't mean I wouldn't race longer distances, but last year lacked a big picture as I tried to cater toward too many individual races and distances. Does running higher mileage to focus on a shorter distance seem contradictory? Not necessarily... My view is running better mileage (which still isn't "high mileage" in the grand scheme of things), will get me through longer workouts at a quality pace, which will ultimately allow me to handle faster paces into the 3rd mile of the 5k.
Before the 5k races cranked up, I headed up to Redding to run the first PA race of the season - the NorCal 10 miler. Normally I'd approach a 10 mile race much like a half marathon - good overall mileage (check), consistent long runs (check), and long tempo runs (somewhat missing in favor of more time on the track). Even if training wasn't focused on this distance, I felt confident that my strength could translate into a solid race. I allowed myself an easier week - even without the race, it's not a terrible idea to get my legs back under me every so often.
The plan for the 10 mile race was to hang back and run comfortably for 4 miles, then try to start moving my way up after that. I also decided that I wasn't going to look at my splits until at least half way through the race. I figured at this point knowing my splits would either psych me out if I was too fast, or psych me out if I was too slow.
As the race got underway there was a lead pack, then a few stragglers (including a couple teammates), then I was in the first chase pack. I fought the urge to jostle or surge by telling myself to relax. The first 3 miles were pretty uneventful. Looking at splits wasn't even an issue because the first mile marker we saw was the 5th. Somewhere around mile 3 I was pulling away from most the guys in my initial pack as I caught up with teammate Jonah, and close to teammate Matt. In the 5th mile as we left the bike trail to loop through a neighborhood, I tried to reel in Mike from the River City Rebels and two guys he was running with less than 5 seconds ahead. A slight attempt at a surge sent me from feeling pretty good, to feeling tired for the first time. Shortly after that, they started to slip away, and Jonah caught back up with me. At the 5 mile mark, I decided not to look at my watch - since I was starting to hurt but had someone to run w/, although did click the split button to look at after the race (27:16 at 5 miles). The 6th mile included the roller coaster hills that we hit on the way out. I stayed with Jonah, though a couple times using the downhills to surge and catch up. The hills ended just before the 7 mile mark, but I was pretty stretched at that point and Jonah started to pull away. In the 8th mile I just tried to keep Jonah from pulling further away. At the 8 mile mark, I finally looked at my watch for the first time - 44:15. I was a little disappointed to be just over 5:30 pace, but knew I needed to push harder to maintain that average pace. It was really hurting now, and I hit 9 miles at 49:52 - 5:37 for that mile. As the bridge we would cross to the finish got closer, Jonah had slipped too far away to have a shot. Then just before the bridge, I heard the one thing I didn't want to hear - footsteps. I was hurting, and had faith in my ability to kick, but didn't want it to come to that. I surged up the very slight slope onto the bridge. I was fully expecting to die toward the end of the bridge, but at that point there would be less than 200 meters to go, including an 180 degree turn, followed by a 90 degree turn. My pursuer had friends cheering for him, but I used it as motivation. Sure enough I was out of gas coming off the bridge, but got ready for one last kick just in case. I never needed it, as my move over the bridge opened the gap back up. I crossed the line in 55:16 for 13th place. My last mile was 5:23 - nothing amazing, but happy I was tough to suck it up when I was really hurting.
Splits were 27:16 for the first 5, then 5:42 (hilly), 5:33, 5:42, 5:37, 5:23.
Heading in I had hoped to run around 54 minutes, which was my split during my half marathon PR. Even falling short of my pre-race goal, it was a solid race on a tough course. I think I had several chances to pack it in during the 2nd half, but kept pressing. Even though I've had a faster 10 mile split, it's a PR for an actual 10 mile race, so have to be happy with that. Plus it's nice to run a race for the 3rd year in a road and clock my fastest time.
Next race will be a track 5K - possibly in 2 weeks, and definitely one in 3 weeks. Back to the track to work on that speed!
