race report: Scotland 10k

[Donovan Rebbech]

Race: Scotland 10k
Venue: Central Park 6 mile loop
Conditions: perfect. maybe 40-50f or so.

Went into this hoping for a sub 37. Wasn't sure how I'd go
-- some of my speed workouts have been good, but the tempo
earlier this week was sluggish, I was over 6:00 and felt
tired at the end.

Anyway, off went the horn, and I cautiously approached the
first mile. Maybe too cautiously, the clock was on 6:10.
Said to the team mate I was running with, "not bad, but a
little slow". So I picked it up on downhill mile 2. Don't
know what my team mate was doing, but he didn't come along,
maybe low on gas or something. I hit mile 3 in 18:02, about
8 seconds behind goal pace -- not bad. But then, those 3
miles were with a net downhill elevation. Now it was time
for some serious hills on mile 4, which I bombed on, in
6:14. It didn't feel too slow, but I probably should have
pushed harder. On mile 5, which includes flats foloowed by a
downhill, I made a 5:50, but this left me still behind 6:00
pace. Tried to finish hard at the end for and ended up with
a 37:24. A "soft PR", faster than any previous 10k races but
short of my other recent efforts (72.1% WAVA compared to
72.9% for the half on the same terrain)

Not sure what to make of it. Milage leading up to the half
was 52,54,55,48. Leading up to this was 48, 56, 60, 59.
Maybe the jump in training load during heavy speed training
took away some of my running legs. Maybe I just shouldn't
expect to be racing my best late in phase 3 of the Daniels
schedule I'm following.

Or maybe I should just blame Scotland and leave it at that
(-;

Hopefully, I'll rediscover my wheels once I start dropping
milage a little (which will happen sometime next week)

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

[Dan Stumpus]

Hi Donovan:

Well, a PR is a PR...Some random thoughts:

1. Whenever I tried for a PR, I always chose a flat as a
pancake course. eNo was also trying for a PR on a non-
flat course. Even a mildly rolling one can take 15
seconds off your time. People don't make up on the
down what they pay on the way up. In the ultra group,
the consensus is add 5 to 10 minutes for each 1000
feet of climb, depending on altitude and footing.
That would scale down to 30 to 60 seconds for each
100 feet of climb.

My personal experience with hilly 10ks is:

400 feet of climb course: add 1:40 --Catalina 10k -- 35:10
10th/1000 800+ feet of climb course: add 4:10 (Topanga 10k
-- 38:10 4th/350

This was when I was in 33:30 to 34:00 10k shape. Slower
runners I know had even more of a decrease.

I know you ran a higher wava for your half on the same
terrain, but you'll always run faster on a flatter course.

2. I was taught to increase mileage in the base phase, and
then back off a bit when going into the speedwork phase.
EG, I'd run 6 easy 100mi weeks, then cut back to 90 when
I went into my 6-7 week sharpening mode. Most people
can't do both without paying a price...

I predict that you will sharpen up after a week or so of a
bit less speed or less mileage. (I favor keeping the
mileage and backing off on the speed just a bit--a 10k is a
race of strength)

3. If you can get your base up to a solid 60+ for at least
6 weeks before your next sharpening, you'll be stronger
and faster.

As with everything I say, ymmv, etc...I'll read up on
Daniels method, out of curiosity.

Good luck,

Dan

"Donovan Rebbechi" <abuse@aol.com> wrote in message
news:slrnc70ugb.54q.abuse@panix2.panix.com...
> Race: Scotland 10k Venue: Central Park 6 mile loop
> Conditions: perfect. maybe 40-50f or so.
>
> Went into this hoping for a sub 37. Wasn't sure how I'd go
> -- some of my
speed
> workouts have been good, but the tempo earlier this week
> was sluggish, I
was
> over 6:00 and felt tired at the end.
>
> Anyway, off went the horn, and I cautiously approached the
> first mile.
Maybe
> too cautiously, the clock was on 6:10. Said to the team
> mate I was running
with,
> "not bad, but a little slow". So I picked it up on
> downhill mile 2. Don't
know
> what my team mate was doing, but he didn't come along,
> maybe low on gas or something. I hit mile 3 in 18:02,
> about 8 seconds behind goal pace -- not
bad.
> But then, those 3 miles were with a net downhill
> elevation. Now it was
time for
> some serious hills on mile 4, which I bombed on, in 6:14.
> It didn't feel
too
> slow, but I probably should have pushed harder. On mile 5,
> which includes
flats
> foloowed by a downhill, I made a 5:50, but this left me
> still behind 6:00
pace.
> Tried to finish hard at the end for and ended up with a
> 37:24. A "soft
PR",
> faster than any previous 10k races but short of my other
> recent efforts
(4.1%
> WAVA compared to 72.9% for the half on the same terrain)
>
> Not sure what to make of it. Milage leading up to the
> half was
52,54,55,48.
> Leading up to this was 48, 56, 60, 59. Maybe the jump in
> training load
during
> heavy speed training took away some of my running legs.
> Maybe I just
shouldn't
> expect to be racing my best late in phase 3 of the Daniels
> schedule I'm following.
>
> Or maybe I should just blame Scotland and leave it at
> that (-;
>
> Hopefully, I'll rediscover my wheels once I start dropping
> milage a little (which will happen sometime next week)
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Donovan Rebbechi http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

[Donovan Rebbech]

In article <zA0cc.15818$lt2.7729@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>, Dan Stumpus
wrote:

Thanks for all the tips Dan.

> 1. Whenever I tried for a PR, I always chose a flat as a
> pancake course.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this too. It's hard to do
where I live, but at least I can get some reasonably flat
5k races in.

> eNo was also trying for a PR on a non-flat course. Even a
> mildly rolling one can take 15 seconds off your time.
> People don't make up on the down

The only hard data I've got is that the course record on the
8k course is 12 seconds off the 8k road race record. Then
again, the guy who set that record is Meb Keflezighi, who
also runs 27:13 for 10k, about 12 seconds or so faster than
Salazar. So maybe it's about 25 seconds for that part of the
park. The 6 mile loop adds an additional mile of nasty
hills. That mile always takes me at least 10 seconds longer
than average pace in the race, so I suppose that would make
another 10 seconds in addition to the 5s/mile over the rest
of the course for a total of about 40 seconds.

> 2. I was taught to increase mileage in the base phase,
> and then back off a bit when going into the speedwork
> phase. EG, I'd run 6 easy 100mi weeks, then cut back
> to 90 when I went into my 6-7 week sharpening mode.
> Most people can't do both without paying a price...

I think I've found some hard evidence (-; The only
substantial change to my training has been the milage
increase.

> I predict that you will sharpen up after a week or so of a
> bit less speed or less mileage. (I favor keeping the
> mileage and backing off on the speed just a bit--a 10k is
> a race of strength)

Hope so! I'm planning on cutting back milage by 25% after
next week, and doing easier speed work (more sharpening)

> 3. If you can get your base up to a solid 60+ for at
> least 6 weeks before your next sharpening, you'll be
> stronger and faster.

That's the plan. That's a big part of why I wanted to push
to 60mpw, even though it flattened me out -- I want to be
comfortable (as opposed to barely hanging in there) at 60mpw
next cycle.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/