Pretty happy with how this played out. I've had a really good 5-week block of base training this winter, averaging 61.5 miles a week thus far, but wasn't feeling race fast as my only hard workouts have been things like a weekly session of 4-5 x 4:00-5:00 @ 10K effort in cold, windy and snowy conditions. Was really nervous how that would translate to a 5K race, which is a total VO2 max blast. As I drove down to Akron to race this indoor track 5K on Akron University's state of the art 300 meter track, part of me was scared that I would struggle to run 6:00 pace. I felt sluggish during my warm up, but once I got in some strides and a brief 3-minute tempo I started to wake up. The race went pretty well. I settled into what felt like the 'right' effort and hit my first mile in 5:37 and continued on to the 2-mile mark in 11:15 (5:38). Good sign! I started to feel kind of rough with about 1200 to go, but just tried to focus on each lap and hold my effort. With about 600 to go I noticed a few runners coming back to me, which helped a lot and I managed to finish my last 300 fairly strong for a final time of 17:37 (5:40 pace).
The race was put on my teammate Jim Chaney who heads up
Chaney Events, the best race organization company I've come across thus far. Jim's an excellent runner and he knows how to put on events that appeal to serious runners (i.e. results posted immediately online, not 3 days later like some NE Ohio race organizations!). Round the Roo was limited to 90 runners (3 heats of 30 runners) and each race went perfectly without any hiccups.
As for this week, it's back to the basics again as I get rolling on the second half of this 10-week block. This week calls for 3 key workouts, consisting of a tempo session of 2 x 15 minutes, hill repeats, and a 2-hour long run on Saturday. The weather is supposed to get rough again, so I'll take it day to day. Hopefully I can hit 65-70 this week. I'm really happy with how I've been handling the higher mileage this winter. I seem to be recovering faster than I used to on this amount of volume, which I hope translates to some great races this spring.
Round the Roo was a nice start to 2011. Hope that Jim puts this on again next year!
