I race a fair amount, usually about 15 or 20 times a year but they are not always all out, nor is my preparation leading up different events the same. I like to classify races as A, B, or C categories. This might not work for everyone, but it does for me.
A races are your peak races. Some are adamant that you can only have two A races in a year, typically in this day and age these are marathons. I tend to think you can have more than than that if you are talking about shorter races. Plus you can have an A series, maybe 2-4 peak races in a season, e.g. going for a big goal time or racing in championships.
I had four A races on the schedule this year. The USATF 4 mile and Bjorkland half in June, the City of Lakes two weeks ago, and the upcoming marathon in October. I did specific workouts for these and tapered for a week.
B races take up the majority of races I’ll do in a year. Those are events that I’d like to do well but usually only take a day or two cutback in training. They are also often scheduled in a way to benefit the A races. I’d still like to have a good result, and will do a couple specific workouts (pace, or hills if it has a hilly course). The outcome of these can be interesting because sometimes the results are hit or miss based on how I’m feeling on race day, or stage in a cycle. This year the Get In Gear 10K, Kraft 5K, Bix 7, and Victory 5K (this Labor Day) were B races.
Next up are the C races. I usually do these as workouts that I run at a pace for a longer distance, or they are broken up into a race simulation, or progression. These are the true “training races,” and the overall pace or placing are not that important. The goal of these is to get the proper work done. So far this year I did a couple Park Run 5Ks during the winter to keep my legs going and to test current fitness, the Bay to Breakers (although a long-time bucket list race was run at a threshold effort, so not quite all out for 49 minutes of running), the road mile in August, and this weekend’s half were also C races.
My Weekend C Race
That brings us to this weekend. With an all out half marathon the other week, sandwiched between two pretty tough long runs I did not see the need run a hard race. However, I have been working on my “durability” (ability to hold a steady pace for a long time) this year and have been referring to John Davis’s book Marathon Excellence and his lecture that I attended earlier this year. This weekend’s session was 20-21 miles (32-33.5K) with 5X4K at marathon pace (MP) with a float recovery (MP+ about 40 seconds in my case).
We drove to Madison on Friday afternoon and spent the evening with our son and his girlfriend. Although this was not a competitive effort for me the scale of the workout was sufficient to make sure that I ate well on Friday, stayed hydrated and got some rest. It was at the end of a big week (74 miles) but at least I had caught up on some sleep depravation from the previous weekend and earlier in the week. It was a great marathon simulation weekend.
We arrived to the race an hour before the start and my plan was to run 6-7 miles for the warmup with the final 2-2.5 miles (3-4K) at marathon pace. My goal for next month is sub 3 (6:52/mile), and I wanted to aim for 6:50 on the faster segments. I ran about 3 miles easy out on the course which winds half way around Lake Monona and back, took a final bathroom break, and drink stop and then ramped up the effort running sub 7s for about 1.9 miles (3K). By then they were lined up and starting the national anthem so I had about 2-3 minute recovery before we took off. The warmup was a little shorter than planned, but I could make that up in the cooldown.
It’s not a big race, maybe 300-400 runners but the start narrow on a bike path so we had waves of about 100. I lined up near the front of the first wave (sub 8 minute miles) and settled into top 12-15 runners by a quarter mile into it, and place-wise pretty much stayed there almost the entire way.
Probably 80% of the race is on roads with the remainder on bike paths or sidewalks. They had a narrow lane of cones the entire way, going out you were supposed to say between cones and curb, but with slant of the road that was sometimes a challenge. I found my pace pretty quickly but had to check that a few times as dipped to about 6:40 pace on occasion.
One guy passed me early on, and I had three or four others in my wake. At 2.5K I eased up and they went around fairly quickly. On those first couple segments I had a hard time easing up to 7:30, and kept on seeing 7:05 or 7:10 on my watch. The 4K sets seemed long and took a fair amount of concentration. I wasn’t breathing hard but keeping the rhythm going on tiring legs took some mental work. The recoveries felt fairly easy but they seemed short!
There were two women and a guy running about the same pace as my faster efforts, and they would pull ahead when I eased up. However, I kept catching them on the 4K segments. Must have driven them a little crazy and I considered offering an apology, but that might seem a little pretentious so I just kept such thoughts to myself.
I passed the 2nd place woman before the turn around and the guy who passed me early on was a good 90 seconds up, and the first place woman was 30-40 seconds ahead. By the turn around I had already run almost 12 miles and the surges were not getting any easier. I calculated that I would have two more 4K surges and would finish with the final 1.5 or 2K at MP.
At about 9 miles
We were really strung out! On the return I ran at least a kilometer with only seeing a smattering of runners. But then the main pack started coming through in large clumps of runners. We had so many twists and turns and half block hills through there. By the time I was approaching the east side of the lake I the outgoing runners were gone. My son and his girlfriend rode by on their bikes and they gave some encouragement. I was tired but it was a good tired, and I felt no distress along the way.
With about 3 miles to go the lead woman seemed to be slowing up. I caught her once then fell back for the recovery. I then reeled her back on the penultimate surge, we ran alongside each other for a bit and then I pulled away. I hit one last recovery at about 11.5 miles (18.5K) in and just eased up for about a half mile. On the final surge I picked it to threshold-sub threshold pace (6:30+/-) and carried it in. Made up a lot of ground on the guy who had passed us in that first mile but not enough to catch him. My half marathon split was 1:30:20, which, considering the surging/floating nature of my pacing was very encouraging and about a minute faster than I had predicted.
I crossed the line, caught my breath, and dropped of some of my gear at the car and jogged another 3K for a cool down. 20 miles at 7:18 pace for the entirety. With 20K at sub 6:50 pace. I think I got my money’s worth for this C race.
