Sometimes there are races where everything seems to go your way. Other times, there are races that you seem to run as well as you could, despite everything not going your way. At the Miles of Trials Kansas City Qualifier on May 3rd, we did a family road trip from Fort Collins to Kansas City for a 5,000m on the track. My personal best was 14:03 from the rabbit5000 in June 2018, so I was excited for an opportunity to try and break 14 minutes. When I got to the track, I was super nervous. This race distance was far outside my comfort zone and it was quite hot and very windy at the track. At the start line, they announced who the pacers were, and someone I’ve competed against for a decade, Joe Moore, was going to be pacing the group towards 13:50. I gave him a fist pound and a thank you, and less than 30 seconds later the gun went off to start the race. I got out quickly, tucked right behind Joe and started clicking off 66 second laps. As each lap went on, I built more and more confidence and positive momentum. Splitting about 4:26 through the 1600, and 8:53 through 3200 were spot on and way ahead of my PR pace. Joe even kept pacing until almost 4k. When he pulled off, the lead group had fallen apart and after being 13th at the mile and 9th at 2 miles, I had a large group of guys coming back towards me. I told myself to catch them over the next lap and a half, which I did, and then ripped a final lap in 61 seconds to end up finishing 4th place in a massive PR of 13:48. Sure, the weather could have been better but the race was perfectly set-up for me and I executed my race plan of settling in behind the pacemaker and being competitive in the last mile. This was a big confidence builder before the race I really wanted to compete well at, the Portland Track Festival 10,000m. The goal I set with my coach Steve Jones at the start of the year was to give myself a chance to qualify for the Olympic Track Trials in the 10,000m. Historically, it’s taken about 28:20 to get to the trials but this year it was going to require hitting the automatic standard of 28:00 or faster. The race was going to be paced for 28:00, so it was another opportunity to ride the train to a fast time and be competitive towards the end. Well, there were 32 guys in the field and my 10,000m PR of 28:54 from a couple of years ago did not rank very high in the field. At the starting line I was in the second row in lane 2. Being in the 2nd row is hard because it makes it nearly impossible to get out and get a good position. The gun goes off and no surprise it’s a mess (no fault of anyone, just what happens when you get 30 guys all trying to run similar times). I have to shove a couple of people that tripped in front of me to keep them and myself on our feet. By the end of the first lap I’m close to the back of the pack and hit a slow 69 second first lap. Second lap isn’t much better and I spend a bit of time in lane 2 getting around people with another slightly slow 68 second lap. Then, I’m settled in on the train of people in probably 25th place and we’re cruising along hitting splits of 66 and 67 seconds. But, the bizarre thing was for some reason it felt like we kept surging faster on the straights and jogging the turns. We’d slow down so much as we entered the turns that I stumbled over my own feet slowing down on three straight laps. I’m assuming the pace was consistent up front, but people wanting to move up on the straights rather than the turns led the back of the back to essentially be doing a fartlek to maintain contact with the group. I’d split the next 3200m in 8:58 and I hit the 5k in 14:06, which was within 3 seconds of my 5k PR before this season...but I started to lose contact with the group and my pace slowed even though I had passed several people. My second 5k was significantly slower in 14:44, yet I still managed to get a 4 second personal best and a 13th place finish. This race felt like I never got in a rhythm and wasted significant energy in the first half, and ultimately it just didn’t work out for me to have a big run over 10,000m.
I really wanted to get out of my comfort zone this spring and race a few track meets to set new PRs, and I successfully went 3 for 3 on PRs in the 1500, 5k and 10k. But, this also reiterated the lesson of how much experience matters. Looking back at the 10k, I should have moved wide and moved up in the field early to get in a better position that would have enabled me to run a more steady pace. With having raced only 3 track 10ks since 2010, I am certainly a little rusty on race tactics on the track! That said, all of this track work and faster paces will translate well to improving my road races especially this fall. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy some summer races in Colorado and hope to take another crack at running a faster 10,000m on the track later this summer!
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