After several months away I’m back. We sweltered through summer, although this year we had a bit of a monsoon season with enough rain to keep most of the local fires away. However, big fires in California and the Pacific NW made up for that and we had poor air quality through most of July and August and into September. I ran through most of it, and just did most of my running fairly early before the ozone got worse.
July and August
Following a three or so week recovery from Grandma’s Marathon I picked things up a bit for the second half of July, with weekly workouts and long runs of up to 13 miles. At the end of the month I did the state championship 10K road race and managed to run 38:46, and was reasonably pleased with that effort as a bit of a rust buster and 45 seconds faster than my 10K attempt in May. Ran 240 miles in July.
August was a good month and I put in 274 miles with a interval sessions and tempo runs every week, plus long runs of 12-13 miles. I also raced three times, but those were short races. On consecutive weekends I did the mile (5:37, 5:33) on the track and following that back to the roads for a 5K. That was supposed to be a 3K on the track but I did not get my entry in on time (the USATF Colorado/Race Director as a stickler on mail-in entries only, must be received a full week ahead of time). Normally I am supportive of local and national USATF, but that was lame.
Anyway, did a season’s best of 18:48 on a course in Centennial with a climb most of the last mile. Not bad, it was a good tune up. Congrats to Arapahoe HS girls, as they won the 5A state championship this weekend!
September and October
I schedule two big races in September, the Fortitude 10K in Fort Collins and the USATF masters 12K road championships on the Jersey coast. The Fortitude race was somewhat tempered because we traveled to Iowa for a wedding ceremony over the weekend. Got back the afternoon before and I felt a little flat on race day, with a 38:47, not quite getting a season’s best. So that was a bit of a disappointment. I did win my age, though. I think 3rd in the age group.
The race in NJ was to be The Big One and I trained for 90% age grade (45:00). My workouts through August indicated I was ready for that. CV reps at 6:00-6:05/mile pace, tempos at 6:20+/-, and V02 reps at sub 6. The course at Sandy Hook National Recreation Area was as flat as you can get and the competition would be good. I set out to run 6:00 mile. It was a good race but with a stiff 12 mph wind for the first 3.5 miles, combined with 70 degree temps with 70% humidity was enough to temper my pace. I only managed a 45:48 on the day (88.3% age grade) but hung on (barely) for a 2nd place finish after a furious kick.
I wanted a bit more, but was not disappointed with the race. I figured this would be the best of the year. However, also felt that I had plateaued since May. The workouts were always a step ahead of the race results and I wondered if I was pushing too hard, trying to force my fitness.
With the travel and cutbacks I ran 221 miles in September.
I didn’t really adjust the subsequent training paces, as I generally run by feel even on the track. However, I took four weeks off from racing but kept the tempo runs and interval sessions going, and upped the long runs a bit to 13-15 miles. Got in some good weeks of training, but nothing stood out. Nevertheless, a 4X 2K threshold session at Washington Park with a clubmate was encouraging, I averaged about 6:19/mile which is just about what I did in March 2019 before going to Virginia Beach to win the USATF 8K age group, and then just a week later going to Poland to medal in the cross country and half marathon events.
Also telling was that it took all week to recover from that workout, so I just ran easy effort until the following Saturday to run a preview of next year’s USATF XC championship 5K to be held in Boulder. I was 4th place masters, but ran only 20:03 the slowest 5K race I have ever run. But I wasn’t discouraged because I know I ran decently for that day.
I set my sights on last weekend’s Colorado Half Marathon back in Fort Collins, and set a challenging pace: to run faster than the 6:22s I did in Boulder. That seemed a bit audacious, but felt doable if I had a good day.
And a good day it was, even though it didn’t always feel like it! We traveled up to the old hometown on Saturday afternoon and took in some sights, including the house I grew up in for my first 10 and a half years. That was fun.
Race day was chilly, with 39 degrees and only warming up to the mid-40s by races end. We started at sunrise.
The field was not deep, but I briefly found a pace group for the first mile as the top 15 or so took off at 6:00 pace or under. Our pack split the mile at 6:26 but the others were saying that that was probably too fast for them, so I took off closer to my pre-determined pace and clicked off a series of miles in the low 6:20s. However, I was not feeling very sharp. I didn’t cut back much for this race (59 miles for the week) and my legs did not feel fresh. However, I wasn’t slowing down and actually started feeling better by 5-7 miles, even though there was a big hill in the middle of that. Onto the bike path in LaPorte at 7.5 miles, I was gaining some on a couple of younger (college age) runners.
But at mile 10 (62:58) I ran into the mid-pack 10K runners on the bike path at their turn-around, and I lost track the two guys just ahead. From some frustration came some stomach discomfort starting at 11.5 miles. I held on and slowed only slightly, running the last 5K in 20:08 to finish in 1:23:06, 1st in age group and 1st masters, 13th overall. That’s 88.3% age grade at altitude, which is better than 90% at sea level. Best race since 2019.
I took it easy this week, with one good workout on Friday and a fun group run in Boulder on Saturday, to cap off the month with 265 miles.
What’s Ahead?
I’ll do Colorado USATF 5K XC and road championships in November and considering the Club Cross Country championships in December before shutting it down for the year. I’ll see how it goes next weekend in Boulder.
rrunnin234 