more on the 15K national championships

Photos - race photos, early lap, 2nd to last lap, and finish; then with Norm at the finish

My shin was sore on Saturday and I contemplated not going to the race, but there was a $150 change fee for my flight, so I decided I'd better go. I'm glad I did!

On Saturday night I decided I might as well start the race, because I could always pull out if the pain got too bad. My coach said that if I felt the pain was holding me back (speed-wise) then I should quit. That never happened, thankfully, and so I was able to finish :).

The weather was perfect. It was 54F (12C) and overcast. It was raining lightly before the start, but it stopped. During the race it drizzled on and off, but it didn't actually make me wet - just cooled me off a bit, and felt good. As I do when it's above 50F, I wore shorts and a short-sleeved shirt.

I started near the front since it was not chip timed. I did the first mile in 9:28, which was a little fast, but close to where I wanted to be (I was thinking more like 9:40), and my shin felt fine. In fact, the shin felt fine through 3K and then it did start to hurt a little bit. It hurt more as the race progressed, but never slowed me that I could tell. My splits are a bit crazy because instead of using the auto lap for each 1K, I did it manually - duh! I COULD have just pushed lap each time we rounded the finish line (the race was 1.703km loops around a lake; beautiful! and a nice flat course) but I wasn't thinking clearly. Anyway, I missed some of the splits...however, I know my 5K split was 29:40 because they were calling that one out for us.

The 10K is probably about 20 seconds off, given that my Garmin was right on at 5K and at 15K it read 14.91k. So, I probably reached 10K in about another 29:55 for 59:35 or so. I knew I'd slowed in the second 5K - I was cautious because my shin was hurting more (though not too awful) and I felt a bit tired and wanted to make sure I could keep the pace. In retrospect, I could have gone faster here, but it was my first 15K and hindsight is 20/20. I was feeling pretty tired from 6-9k, but I only slowed a little bit. Still, it hurt my final time I'm sure.

The last 5K started with a pretty good second wind, but on that last 1.7k around the lake I needed some prodding to keep going hard. I mentioned in my last post that Norm Frable was looking out for me and really pushed me to give it my all. I'm very grateful for his help, because once I got in that groove I finished fast and smooth. Assuming my 10K was 59:35, that makes my last 5K split a very nice negative split of 29:27 and a final time of 1:29:02. It would have been nicer to do even splits and finish in 1:28:30ish, but I have no regrets, as with the shin it was hard not to be cautious in the middle. I feel I have potential to go faster next time, and am much more hopeful I'll be able to get under 2 hr for the 20K in July at World Masters, IF I'm healthy enough to train.

My shin felt pretty good for 3-4 hrs after the race but by the time I'd schlepped my stuff through the airport security and sat there waiting for my plane for a couple hours, it was very sore. Actually, it's really not my shin at this point, but rather the front of my ankle. Jim thinks it might be some tendonitis. I might call my sports med doc tomorrow if it's still really sore. I hope I will be able to resume training after a week or so, and then I won't be set back too much in my quest for a medal at World Masters.

Garmin connect data here.

more pictures of 15K

pictures of 5K