As far as improving on my times in various events, this has
been a breakout year. In the last 6 months I have smashed my half marathon PR
in September and marathon PR in November by 3.5 minutes and 13.5 minutes to
1:19:28 and 2:53:16. I also lowered my 8K by 40 seconds in November to 27:59
and now my 5K PR by 15 seconds in April to a new time of 16:43! To top all of
this off, I made my Ultramarathon debut in January with a 9:55:06 in the 100K.
All my hard work is now starting to pay dividends in events I did not even
expect it.
On Saturday, April 2nd, 2016 I competed in the
Shifters 5K in Waltham, MA. I decided last minute to hop into this event
because I wanted to see if I had improved on my 8K effort from two weeks before
hand. The race starts at 1:00pm so I had plenty of time to sleep in a little
bit and get ready for the race. The forecast called for cold rain, and sure
enough it was pouring out when I woke up. I got ready, ate a bagel for
breakfast and then waited for my friend Dave Menard, who also ran the 5K, to
come drive us to the race. When we got to the race we quickly registered and
then ran the course to get a feel for it. The course had one giant hill at the
very start but made up for it on the last mile which was almost all straight
downhill. I was feeling alright on the warmup, but not great. My goal heading
into this race was too get in a solid effort and hopefully push under 17:30. As
the race came closer to starting I surveyed the competition and did some
strides and stretches. Soon enough, we were on the start line and the rain was
coming down pretty hard. The siren went off and I jumped to the front. My plan
was to start conservatively and push hard as soon as I crested the hill. This
led to a five or six of us all hunched in the lead until I blew it open when we
hit the flats. Only one guy stuck with me and he went hard, even passing by me
for about a half a mile. The two of us hit the mile right at 5:37. I was
feeling pretty good and my turnover felt surprisingly high. The second mile featured
the most turns on the course although it was largely flat. All I could think
about this mile was keeping the 2nd place guy behind me until we hit
the downhills. Just before we hit mile two I threw in a surge to try and keep
him off balance and I believe that I opened up a second or two, which he
quickly closed. We both passed mile two in 11:10 with a 5:33 second mile. When
I turned and hit the downhill I took off with all the speed I had in my legs
and put in a huge surge. We were flying on the downhill, but I did not feel
like I was opening up too much of a lead. I kept hitting the pace hard and
finally rounded the last turn of the course before a long straightaway to the
finish. I could feel myself slowing down a little bit but not too bad. As I closed
on the finish line I looked back and saw that I had the win safely in the bag.
It was at that point though that I noticed the clock. I had assumed that I
would finish somewhere in the 17:15s based on how the race had panned out so
far, but I was shocked to see 16:30s ticking up on the clock. I pushed as hard
as I could and finished 1st Overall with a new PR of 16:43! Second
place came in just behind me in 16:48. He said that his Garmin recorded a split
of 5:04 for the 3rd mile, meaning that my third mile had come in at
4:59 to 5:00! I was pretty ecstatic with this result and I think I am looking
good for a sub-35 10K at the James Joyce 10K on April 24th, 2016.
After the race Dave and I headed over to the Cooper House Tavern where they
were having an after party with music and free food. For my win I ended up
getting and medal as well as a 40$ gift certificate to the restaurant. All in
all, a great race that also capped off a solid week of training. That now
brings me to my last two weeks of training…
Week of March 21st, 2016 to March 27th,
2016
65 Miles
10 Runs
Average of 6.50 Miles Per Run
7.54 Hours of Running
Runs:
Monday: 10.2 Miles (6.2 @ 6:37 Pace, 4 @ 6:57 Pace)
Tuesday: 11.3 Miles @ 6:56 Pace
Wednesday: 8.5 Miles @ 6:58 Pace
Thursday: 10 Miles (7 @ 7:00 Pace, 3 @ 7:04 Pace)
Friday: 10 Miles @ 7:03 Pace
Saturday: 8.5 Miles (6.2 @ 7:39 Pace, 2.3 @ 6:26
Pace)
Sunday: 6.5 Miles @ 6:35 Pace
Week in Review:
Pretty solid
week of training, but it was difficult on my legs to readjust to the higher
mileage. Felt a lot of fatigue towards the end of the week. Switched out my
shoes and got a new pair of the Mizuno Wave Hitogami’s as well as a pair of the
HOKA ONE ONE Challengers.
Week of March 28th, 2016 to April 3rd,
2016
60 Miles
8 Runs
Average of 7.5 Miles Per Run
7.20 Hours of Running
Runs:
Monday: 8.1 Miles (5 @ 7:22 Pace, 3.1 @ 6:55
Pace)
Tuesday: 7 Miles @ 7:07 Pace
Wednesday: 19.3 Miles @ 7:27 Pace
Thursday: 4 Miles @ 6:43 Pace
Friday: 6.2 Miles @ 7:18 Pace
Saturday: 8 Miles (5K in 16:43, 4.9 Miles @ 7:40
Pace)
Sunday: 7.5 Miles @ 7:08 Pace
Week in Review:
What started
off as a pretty bad week turned into a great one by Sunday. Had a little more soreness
after my long run than I would have liked, but I do not think it ended up
hindering my race on Saturday. Overall, the lower mileage this week definitely
helped my feel fresher and I’m ready to crank it up a little bit more this
week.
One again
thanks to everyone who gives my blog a read. Going to continue to have training
updates, race recaps, and probably just more running news in general. In
addition, if anyone is interested reading about my workouts or wants to know splits
I have my training log up on Athleticore at:
http://athleticore.com/directory/profile_view.asp?id=11073&sort=LName,%20FName&searchbox=FName&searchtext=chase&page=1
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