10K kickdown

The first week back in training continues to be painful, as expected. Today's workout was a 10K kickdown, and I drove to the track with some apprehension. To make things more complicated, the high school cross country team was there for part of the time (up until about 5km of my workout) and I had to RW in lane 2 for a while because they were doing 400m intervals. Bummer. At least the weather was good; it was lovely at 57F (14C) and clear and calm.

In the first 400m I knew I was in trouble today. I was really stiff and sore, and felt I was walking through mud, with heavy, tired legs. It a lot of concentration to maintain 3:10/500m (6:20/k) to start, as my coach and I had agreed upon. I did 15:44 for the first 2.5km, 6 seconds under the goal of 15:50. Then I had to really focus to speed it up to 3:05/500m. I pulled a couple 3:06s and a 3:05 and then a 3:10 and I groaned inwardly and tried to refocus. I'm ashamed to admit that I nearly quit the workout at several points today. Mentally, I was not in the zone at all, and I kept doubting myself. Why did I need to do the 30K? I could just quit now and spare myself all the hard training, which might go all for nothing again like the 40K. Similar thoughts bombarded me and I couldn't push them away effectively. I finally told myself to take it 500m at a time and just go from there, and managed a 3:01, but I was still only halfway through the workout. The second 2.5km was 15:30, 5 seconds slower than the goal.

Somehow I kept going and managed to go faster. I told myself I could quit if I still wanted to when I got to 7.5km. I did 3:01, 3:01, 3:01, 2:57, and 3:01 for the next 500s, getting to 7.5km in 15:01, only 1 second shy of my goal. I stopped for about 30 seconds to give myself a pep talk and to mentally refocus, as I was doubting everything so much. I don't know how I managed to start again, but I did it, and oddly enough, when I asked for leg speed, there was something there! Strangely, the last 2.5km wasn't so terrible. I felt lousy, true, but had some strength despite that. It was weird. I managed 2:54.0, 2:52.5, 2:54.7, 2:55.2 and 2:51.3 for a last 2.5K time of 14:27.7. That is not even close to my best, but you know, considering how lousy I felt today, breaking 14:30 felt like an amazing accomplishment.

Finishing was the real accomplishment today, though. I felt so mentally weak, and it actually scared me a bit. Time to firm up my desire and motivation and picture some positive results from all this hard work. That's difficult to do following a bad race, but it's what I need to do if I'm going to do well at the 30K. So much of this is in your head.

Total time: 1:00:43

Garmin data here.