My first real plunge into road racing (September 2013)

This past month I took my first real introduction to serious road racing. I had been training all summer with the goal of running a fast half marathon on September 15 at Philly RnR, but I wanted to do a few prep races to get back into the swing of things and win some money. I was also pretty curious to see how training strictly for the half marathon would benefit my shorter racing.

The races I ran were:
Sept 2 - 5k (14:25, 2nd)
Sept 6 - 5k (14:19, 1st)
Sept 15 - half marathon (1:05:40, 15th)
Sept 28 - 5 mile (24:30, 2nd)

I would definitely characterize 4 races in a month, with one being 13.1 miles, as a dense racing schedule. All were good experiences: I won some money, set PR's every time out, beat some good people, and made some new friends. The half marathon was obviously the highlight, with a time that is only 40 seconds away from qualifying for the Olympic Trials.

This month of racing was a good learning experience. I learned that I definitely can't realistically race every week perpetually. It's pretty tiring and tough to stay in good shape while constantly backing off or recovering from races. Maybe every 2 weeks is a sustainable frequency, at least for races in the 5k-10k range.

Another lesson learned is that I can race extremely well off of half marathon training. I knew this in an academic sense, that half marathon/LT training is very beneficial and probably the best training for getting in overall good distance shape (assuming adequate base) but I was surprised to run 14:19 on the roads with no specific 5k work whatsoever. That's my 3rd fastest 5k ever, counting the ones on the track where I was sucked along in a paceline. I ran 14:19 on the roads leading every step of the way, beating Owen and Kyle Dawson, both of who have no business losing to me.

I'll take an easy week this week and hopefully resume good training again soon, I just need to get some goal races to keep me motivated. Besides Rothman/Philly half, I'm sure there are some other ones in November/December to carry me through to indoor track where I want to race the mile/3k and see what all this good distance work translates to.