SLC TRACK CLUB WINTER 10K
I looked for every excuse I could yesterday to not run this race. I was already registered, but with my knee bugging me lately and the storm-that-never-was approaching I figured I would do an indoor track workout with Ben for his birthday (30x400). So, when I woke up this morning and my knee felt ok and the weather was pretty decent, I figured I had no excuses and I needed to head down and race. Sorry Ben (hope you enjoyed your 30-mile run that was your plan B).
Coming in I wanted to run a negative split and work on attempting to win a race without leading start to finish. I sometimes have a hard time when I want to win a race of being patient early and letting others get out to a lead. But today I was really focused on a negative split. Well, when I got out of the car at Salt Air I knew that wasn't going to happen as there was a ferocious wind that would serve as a tailwind going out and headwind coming back. So I settled on "negative" effort split, meaning even though the splits would be worse in the second half, the effort would be greater.
I had a good warmup, just shy of 4 miles with strides. The race started and Bryant got out quite quickly with Jason right behind him. I settled into 3rd and tried to remain patient and just run comfortably. By the mile I had caught up to Jason and was running side by side with him. The mile split was 4:59. I decided that was just a tad too slow with tailwind, so I sped up a bit. Jason dropped around 1.25 in and I was gaining ground slowly on Bryant. By mile two I caught up to him and after a minute or so of running with him I took a slight lead. Mile two was 4:55. I opened a tiny lead in mile three and focused on not getting too excited and saving some for the trek back into the crazy wind gusts. I hit mile three in 4:53 and I think the 5k was around 15:20 give or take a few seconds (I know my first four 1k splits were 3:07 3:06 3:03 and 3:02, so 15:20 is probably about accurate).
At the turn I immediately got hit with some strong winds. I saw that Bryant was only 2-3 seconds back and Jason and Jake were still in striking range as well. I tried to keep my head down and really work on that negative effort split. I hit mile 4 in 5:18, which may not seem impressive to any that wasn't at the race, but this was actually the mile that I put a good gap on Bryant and the race was really won in this mile.
The wind wasn't quite as bad in mile 5 and I was able to hit a 5:15. I tried to really work the last 1.21 miles to accomplish my negative effort split. I kept my head down in the wind and as I looked at the ground I just focused on eating up as much ground as fast as I could. I felt strong in the last mile and managed a 5:03. The last 0.21 I ran in 5:01 pace and finished in 31:41 with a course record and five seconds faster than my time last year.
I had a good cooldown after with Bryant, Dave, Matt, and Spencer. It was a good morning and I am happy with the effort. I would have liked to see what I could run in good conditions, but it is what it is. I got ice on my knee immediately after the cooldown and it feels the best it has all week. So, hopefully with being off tomorrow it will be even better come Monday.
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