I got back late last night from the Larry Ellis Friday Night Races. I ran the second (and last) planned fast time-trial 5000 of the season and my goals were the same as last time: be as competitive and smart as possible and run faster than I did last time out. I accomplished those goals and finished in 14:09.87 for 10th place in the fast heat. I ran generally very even splits, with all laps from 1-11 between 67 and 69, only varying due to the pace fluctuations of the pack.
With this race I finally accomplished the "short-term" time goal I had set for myself when I started what I considered to be really serious training the summer before my junior year. 14:10 represented a benchmark for a good college runner, an even time goal to shoot for (straight 68s) and, at the time, a lofty but not impossible goal. Now that I've finally accomplished this, I have a few new goals:
1) Get better at the events above and below the 5k. I still haven't run a 1500 equivalently as fast as my mile PR and my big seasonal goal for that is to break 3:50. As far as the 10k, I won't run one this year, because it never really fit into my schedule and because I found last year that it's basically impossible to train for a good 10k and a good 1500, and I knew I definitely had upside that I wanted to explore at the shorter distance. The other problem with the 10k is that it just takes so much out of your season and I wanted to be able to race at every good opportunity. Next year the 10k could become my main focus, but I'll start thinking about that later on.
2) Take another second per lap off of that 5k time to get under 14:00. This one is self-explanatory, just a logical progression now that I'm down to 14:09. I won't have another opportunity to PR again this season; I'm only running one more 5k and it's at the upcoming NCTFA meet in Kentucky. The race is scheduled to start at 1 pm and will likely be me vs. a 14:19 kid in a tactical race, so I'm not expecting any spectacular times.
3) Somewhat tying in with the sub 14 goal, get fit enough to be able to compete for the win in most major meets. Obviously a sub 14 will still have me buried in the field at the Stanford meets or Mt. SAC, but at least on the east coast a time like that will put me up at the front. To me, the most exciting thing about running is racing and winning; running fast is great and I get a lot of satisfaction from it, but at the end of the day it is only a means to an end. I want to get fit enough that I can take some big scalps in the upcoming seasons.
No comments:
Post a Comment