Why I still think I can do it

I'm obviously happy about Tuesday's race, but here's the deal. My 19:47 5k result predicts a 41-minute 10k. That's still a long ways away from a sub-40. Some would say a really long ways.

Why am I still optimistic? Good question. Here are my reasons (to steal from something I already posted on the Coolrunning forums):

• I wasn't tapered for Tuesday's race. I will be tapered at the Bolder Boulder.
• Temperatures will almost certainly be cooler (and thus faster) at the Bolder Boulder, which has a 7 AM start.
• I paced poorly at Tuesday's race. With better pacing I could hope to run a 19:30(?) on my current fitness.
• I still have almost three weeks before my goal race. By then, the workouts I'm doing right now will be transformed into better fitness. That's the idea, at least!
• I've always suspected the course from Tuesday's 5k is slow, due to the dirt/gravel surface. In 2005 I raced three times on this course, finishing in 21:15, 20:55, and 20:44. That would have predicted a 43-minute 10k, but in fact I ran 40:39 at the Bolder Boulder two weeks later. My 5k splits in the race were 20:19 and 20:20, both faster than any of my 5k races on the dirt course.

Instead of giving up after consulting various race predictors on the internet, I'm just gonna ignore them. After all, those charts don't run the race FOR you!

Today's Run

Another quality workout today. 5000 meters at tempo pace on the track (6:47 per mile). Funny, the schedule called for a 20-minute tempo run, so I was going to do 4800 meters. But why not just go an extra 200 for the full 5k, I thought? I came in at 21:03, running pretty even splits the whole way, and never feeling stressed. Nice. That beat my 5k result from last month, and this time I was running at tempo, not race pace. To be honest, conditions were much worse at the race in April, so it's probably not a good comparison.

I followed that by 4x200 at R-pace. My rep pace is supposed to be 42-43 seconds per 200. Somehow I have trouble hitting that. I'm always afraid I'll be too slow, so I keep the pace high and come in too fast. I finished the 200s at 40.0, 41.1, 41.0, and 41.1. At least I stayed pretty consistent.

Today's totals: 7.2 miles in 1:02:47, including 5km at T-pace and 4x200 at R-pace.

Interesting thing -- on my way to the track, I found the creek path blocked off with police tape. They had shut down the entire high school due to suspected terrorist activities. It turns out a cafeteria worker had seen two guys dressed in camo and ski masks this morning, so police were being very cautious and checking things out thoroughly. I had to run way around to finally get to the track, and all the students got the day off of school, but so far it looks like that's the extent of the incident. Sign of the times, I guess.

Threshold Intervals

The legs felt ok this morning. Ok, but not great. I took 15 minutes before breakfast and hammered my left IT band and TFL (Tensor Fascia Latae), problem spots for me, with a foam roller. I felt much better afterwards.

I was a bit nervous about today's workout: threshold intervals. Once again, I refer to Daniels:

Ti (Threshold Intervals): Sets of repeated miles at T-pace with 1-minute rests, up to 8% of week's total mileage or 10 km (whichever is less).

Again, I'm running 30 miles per week, so 8% would be 2.4 miles. I went a little crazy and rounded it up to 3 full miles. Next I had to look up my Threshold (T) pace in the Training Intensities Table. Using my estimated VDOT of 51, my T-pace is 6:44 per mile.

I decided to run these at the track. Even though the creek path has every half-mile marked, I was still worried about pacing correctly. At the track, it's just so easy to see if you're on pace every 100 meters. I also decided to run 1600-meter intervals, instead of a full mile. It's only 9 meters difference, and I can't seem to find the mile marker on the track anyway.

The first mile felt easy. I turned in 400-meter splits of 99.0, 100.6, 100.1, and 100.5 seconds, for a total of 6:40. A little fast, but no problem. By lap 3 of the second mile, I was starting to feel it. I was still running a bit fast, though, and came in at 6:39 this time. The last mile definitely felt hard, but I still finished in 6:40.

To me, this workout felt much more difficult than yesterday's. Now I'm wondering if I have overestimated my VDOT. If so, I'm running too fast. I just looked up Daniels' definition of T-pace:

"Subjectively, the intensity of effort associated with T-pace running is comfortably hard. The effort should be one that you could maintain for about one hour in a race."

I highly doubt I could run at 6:40 pace for a whole hour at this point in my training. So, maybe I'm running too fast. But for now, I'll just go with it and see what happens. With any luck, this workout should feel a little bit easier next time I do it.