10km PR RR - Bittersweet

Triathlon Forum
1

First, thanks everyone on slowtwitch for the pacing advice in my post of a few days ago, it was much appreciated!

Now, onto the main event. I had decided that I would go with my fellow Vancouverites post and shoot for approximately 3:45 / km for the first two km and then to hold about 3:55 / km or so for the last 8 km.

Unfortunately, as was also pointed out, the Vancouver Sun Run with its 50,000 runners isn’t exactly the easiest course to maintain a pace. To begin with, the course is quite undulating so you are up and down on pace, but worse than that, you are deaking and dodging the whole race as people who pushed to get to the front of the race are jogging a 5:00 / km or worse, walking. At one point, someone even managed to kick out my feet, but I managed to avoid the face plant.

At the 1/2 way point of the run, I was about 8 seconds ahead of schedule and feeling good. I hit some of the hills, did some deaking and dodging again and managed to fall behind schedule. At km 8 I was at about 32:20 or so, meaning I needed to make up 20 seconds to hit my goal.

I still felt that I had gas and wanted to make the push, but I had a damn mental breakdown as approximately km 8-1/2 to km 9-1/4 were uphill and my lungs were heaving. T this point the doubt broke in and I looked at the watch and it was 4:20 / km. Instead of pushing up the hill and getting where I needed to be, I started thinking 40:45 wouldn’t be bad if I held the 4:20 for the last 1-1/2 kms.

Coming off the Cambie street bridge, I decided to lay it out to see what I had left in the tank so I pushed hard for the last 400 to 500 meters (and I do mean a full on sprint), coming across the line in 40:09.

Last year’s run was 53:59 so I did cut out almost 14 minutes in one year, but the damn goal was 3x:xx and I didn’t do it.

Why not? Well, first, I gained 6 - 7 pounds in the last 2 weeks as we were on vacation and I fell off the tracks a little with diet. Second, had the damn mental breakdown and gave up for 1/2 to 1 km and third, maybe I’m not training enough for speed currently as my current goal / focus is Ironman Canada.

All that aside, it is Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda!

The plan will be to get back on track with diet and training and push for IMC. And get through that. Once I am done IMC I am going to focus on running much more extensively as I will aim for a BQ qualifier and mostly olympic triathlons. If I am able to get my weight down to the 140 - 145 pound range and train consistently, I believe I will PR this years time big time.

So, while I failed in this attempt, I have a new goal for next year of 37:30 or lower. If I can go from 1:54 to 1:40 in one year, then I should be able to do this.

Again, thanks everyone not only for your advice to my question the other day but also in all the great running posts, training posts, and general knowledge I have been able to pick up on this site.

Best of luck to all of you in your training and your racing this year!

2

celebrate the PR!

progress is progress!

3

Seriously, you didn’t make your goal, but you cut 14 minutes off your race, that’s f’ing huge! Congrats man.

4

Taking off 14 minutes in a year is amazing. You should try to find a “proper 10k” in the next 6 weeks to get a real baseline. When I say “proper” I mean a race with 500-1000 people where you can basically run your pace the entire race without trying to run a “race” within a parade of 50,000 people. In a 10K where seconds mean everything an event like the Sun run is not ideal to establish a baseline 10K (in my view), just due to the crowds. Aside for the front runners, everyone else’s effort is somewhat messed up.

Anyway, great job. As for not being “optimized for speed” at the moment, you’d be surprised how little speedwork you need to run a fast 10K.

Let’s put it this way…37:30 10K pace is 90 seconds per 400m. That pace is only 22.5 seconds per 100m. We can pretty well take any able bodied person off the street and have then sprint 22.5 seconds for 100m…the trick is to do 100 of those in succession.

5

The trick is to have them do 100 of those in succession is a very good point.

It is also why I have always thought 37:30 should be achievable as it is only 1:30 a lap for 25 laps.

I will find a good course for a 10 km next fall after IMC.

Plan is one sprint, olympic, and 1/2 before IMC and then running significantly after that.

6

shouldve dropped a deuce, wouldve gone 39:59
.

7

Thats the wonderful thing about goals, OP. If you hit them, great! If you don’t hit them, then you still have a goal to shoot for. A 14 minute PR in 52 weeks is extremely impressive. That means you (on average) dropped ~15 seconds every week this past year! I haven’t PRed in anything in 3 years- at this point I’d rather be in your shoes :slight_smile:

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Congratulations on the PR.

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Thanks to everyone for the resposnes!

It did feel good to PR and I am sure in the days to come I will be proud of that. I think we’ve all been there when we don’t hit the goal, just takes a few days to get over it.

In fairness, I was about 205 pounds when I did it last year and 40 less than that this year$

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Great job on the PR !!! I feel you about the extra pound’s something I got to lose too. Another thing to keep in mind is peaking. I know I was in much better shape around x-mas last year. I am hoping to hunker down myself and try to peak around enf of June and mid july.

11

Thanks Manners,

Yes, peaking is key as well. Same as you, my peak will come in the Summer - August at IMC.

With regards to the PR, I think I will set PRs for sprint, olympic, 1/2, and IM this year.

Mostly because I’m less fat and now somewhat train and also because I have never done an IM so if that finishes, its automatic :wink:

12

Nice PR.

If it makes you feel any better I’ve been trying to PR over 5k recently (PR being 20 flat last year). Ran 20:29 last week and 20:11 this morning (on, admittedly, a harder course in worse conditions than the run last year, but I asked the clock and it said it didn’t care). Definitely learning alot about pacing and digging at the end of the race, I’m not so used to short races.

In the end its an arbitrary time benchmark, taking 14 minutes off is more impressive than a sub40 10k.

13

Celebrate the MASSIVE PR - and ignore ‘falling short’ of the completely arbitrary pre-race time goal.

Pretty much nobody ever gets to knock that much time off of a 10k. Ever.
You went from participating, to racing. Congrats.

The good news is, you can very easily go quite a bit faster next time, simply by having a little better prep, and finding a normal sized race on a flat course.

14

Thanks much.

“but I asked the clock and it said it didn’t care” Love It. At the end of the day, that’s what you take away.

As you pointed out though, if you’re getting 20:11 on a harder course, you should be able to go sub 20:00 soon if on a better course.

Might do next year what I read in Runner’s world earlier this year, which is run as many road races at each distance as I can to get the race mindset strong.

Nice PR.

If it makes you feel any better I’ve been trying to PR over 5k recently (PR being 20 flat last year). Ran 20:29 last week and 20:11 this morning (on, admittedly, a harder course in worse conditions than the run last year, but I asked the clock and it said it didn’t care). Definitely learning alot about pacing and digging at the end of the race, I’m not so used to short races.

In the end its an arbitrary time benchmark, taking 14 minutes off is more impressive than a sub40 10k.

15

I agree with KingML. Go find yourself a race that is not a parade where you can run properly and don’t wait till after IMC. A good “faster than threshold pace” run will gain you just as much training load as a long run. Tell your coach you’ll do a 5 K warmup and 5K cooldown. This should be equivalent in training load to an IM race pace 30K run, and you can just drop that week’s long run.

Another thing I was pointing out to a few friends last month is that no matter the race, in the end, they all boil down to a 10K…be it half marathon, half Ironman, marathon or full Ironman. The last 10K feels exactly like an open 10K, only diff is your speed is slower. No harm racing a few 10K’s in your build up to any of these events.

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nice…big PR

more good advice on here

big picture IM is a long day. There will be lots of good patchs and bad. Lots of “tradeoffs” with yourself. How you re-act and choose to push through is key.

good luck

17

Sounds like you easily go under 40 with a “fast” course. I also agree with the other posts about doing another 10k race before IMC as the speed/tempo wouldn’t hurt preparations at all. If not pick a 10k about 3-4 weeks after IMC and you will crush your PR with all the fitness from the Ironman.

Congrats on a great race and you were right there. The mental experience you gained from that race will help in future races.