Monday, May 18, 2009

Monday

I finished last week with 103 miles with nearly all of it at 8000ft. Ended with a hill climb race then a 23 mile easy long run on Sunday. Solid week and I felt it today... but not that much. I ran down in Lafayette and started with a nice jog but ended somehow stepping on to the track and doing 8 X 200 in 38"-39" on 200 in 1:00. These felt awesome and I was thinking I may try to hold this pace at Bolder Boulder on Monday. My racing 'style' has always been to push hard at the start and if I blow up then I place 10th... if I don't then I win or place top 3. On Monday I am thinking of starting harder than my fitness level indicates, if I don't blow up then I run 31:XX. If I do then I run 32:XX. I have little reason not to try this. On Saturday my HR averaged 161 for the first 3 miles and I was trying hard to hold back thinking I would have more strength at the end. I would have raced much better and placed much higher if I had simply went to the front and gutted it.
This is going to be a rest week of sorts.

4 comments:

GZ said...

Interesting post. I was wondering what your strategy was actually when you started as you did (what I thought was conservative for you). I have been contemplating just doing a race or two where I just say "F it" go with the leaders and know I am going to blow ... recover as much as I can and start the process again. I know this is not ideal physiologically, but I have been contemplating what it could do mentally.

Lucho said...

My thought is that you won't break through with out risk. Why not give it hell in a non priority race? And like I said... what if you DON'T blow up!?

GZ said...

Kudos on a good result yesterday. Sorry we did not connect up a bit more. I meant to let you know that there are BRR track meet races the first and third Thursdays of June, July, August. They start at 6PM ... there is always an 800, they mix up a mile / 1500 (alt Thurs), and then mix in a 3K, 5k, 10k, and even a steeple. The competition ranges from none to pretty rich (one of the 5Ks went under 15 I think a couple of summers ago). One of my favorite (in a sick way) things to do is the mile and then double back for the 800 ... 10 minutes later. Great way to get religious.

Lucho said...

That sounds like a blast!! Demoralizing but a blast.