{"id":835,"date":"2012-08-25T10:39:12","date_gmt":"2012-08-25T14:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/?p=835"},"modified":"2012-08-25T10:42:27","modified_gmt":"2012-08-25T14:42:27","slug":"darn-missed-a-pr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/2012\/08\/25\/darn-missed-a-pr\/","title":{"rendered":"Darn &#8230; Missed a PR &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This morning I ran the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nyrr.org\/races-and-events\/harlem-5k-run\" target=\"_blank\">Percy Sutton Harlem 5K<\/a>.  It was 74 degrees with about 85% humidity under cloudy skies. I finished in 20:40 (6:40s), which was 37 seconds off my PR for a 5K set on this course in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my unofficial Garmin results, which imply I ran more around 6:33s rather than 6:40s:<br \/>\n<iframe width='465' height='548' frameborder='0' src='http:\/\/connect.garmin.com:80\/activity\/embed\/214679872'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This morning I did a quick measure of my prior record on this course (20:03).  I resolved that I wanted to run a sub-20:00, which equated to sub-6:26s.  Having only run once this week (a 10-miler) and only about 29 miles last week (after two 60+-mile weeks in a row), I figured I&#8217;d have some fitness in me but I did feel flabby and weaker.  The question would be about my cardiovascular health in trying to go faster.<\/p>\n<p>I decided to think this way about the race:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">a) the last .1 mile would need to be run in about 45 seconds, which would probably feel fast<br \/>\nb) I should try to manage 6:26s or lower<br \/>\nc) I should avoid the temptation to go too fast in the beginning of the race<br \/>\nd) the first mile has some long inclines from what I remembered, so plan for those<br \/>\ne) the last mile of the race has some steep downhills from what I remembered, so take advantage of those<br \/>\nf) calculate the seconds you need to shave off in light of your prior miles in order to achieve your goal<br \/>\ng) and cut tangents<\/p>\n<p>I tried all of that.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Tangents weren&#8217;t that important in this race&#8211;I hugged the curb and generally cut diagonals where I could.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The first mile I held back on my pace (it&#8217;s downhill from the beginning and the excitement can make you push your speed, only to encounter a steep uphill around the .5-mile mark and drain you), which allowed me better push up the hill (a trick I learned in my last 10K in Central Park).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">My Garmin said my first mile was run in 6:33, which was a good sign for what I thought would be my slowest mile, but my slowest mile was actually my second mile, which showed me unnoticeably &#8220;sluggisher&#8221; and unable to really push my speed much, and which had some unfriendly uphill climbs at least two, maybe three times.  (I lost about 5 seconds on the second mile.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I took advantage of the downhills, but I found that I really couldn&#8217;t push myself much.  Part of it was mental, brought on by my inexperience training these last couple weeks: I was relatively afraid of what sprinting a bit would mean to the rest of my race.  I only gained about 4 seconds relative to my first mile, which surprised me because I thought I would end up with considerably more seconds banked here.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I did do the math.  At one point I realized I needed to shave off 18 seconds to match my record, which seemed like just an insurmountable task for me at this pace unless I could capitalize on the hills.  When I saw I wasn&#8217;t shaving off these seconds on them, I realized pretty close to the end of the race I wouldn&#8217;t achieve a PR.  I pushed myself as best I could to the end, not even able to do my usual sprint finish (suggesting I put my all into this race).  All in all, I think this ended up being my second-fastest 5K (I haven&#8217;t run many 5K races), though I may have run faster 5Ks inside longer races in my life.<\/p>\n<p>Before the race, I warmed my legs up with a jog for about 5 blocks to the race start.  After getting my bib and checking my baggage, I also stretched then ran a couple sprints up a steep park hill next to the start of the race.  Things seemed pretty good in my legs, and I was happy to warm them up.  The humidity didn&#8217;t seem to be too much of a factor, though it was more humid-feeling than I was expecting.  I don&#8217;t recall the exact weather from my 2009 PR, but I do remember it as humid and cloudy, perhaps more humid than today was.<\/p>\n<p>The prior day&#8217;s caffeine intake led to a very dehydrated body and dry mouth at the beginning of the race.  Knowing this would be the case ahead of time, I took in some water right out of bed.  I had a 2x caffeine PowerGel just before 7am, then about 10 minutes before the race I had an uncaffeinated PowerGel for some extra help.  I took in a couple cups of water before the race and I felt fine.  I wasn&#8217;t affected by the caffeinated PowerGel during this race (shallow breathing, heart palpitations, etc.), so that was a good thing, and my breathing was relatively measured (though I tried to quicken it to quicken my pace at times).<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, shows to go ya.  This race is a good measure of my fitness level and my marathon training goals, especially relative to my banner 2009 year.  It implies what kind of focus I need in my next training, both nutritionally and physically.  Specifically, I think I need to work some speedwork in more.  I still wrestle with doing that, especially considering that I&#8217;ve fallen in love with LSD running (&#8220;long, slow distance running&#8221;).  It quickened me for the Boomer&#8217;s Run to Breathe PR, but probably not enough for these shorter races.  I need to really focus on the Fifth Avenue Mile, which is another favorite race of mine and where it would be incredible if I PR&#8217;d this year.  Can I do it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning I ran the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K. It was 74 degrees with about 85% humidity under cloudy skies. I finished in 20:40 (6:40s), which was 37 seconds off my PR for a 5K set on this course in 2009. Here are my unofficial Garmin results, which imply I ran more around 6:33s rather &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/2012\/08\/25\/darn-missed-a-pr\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Darn &#8230; Missed a PR &#8230;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,7,3],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5ks","category-news","category-races","tag-percy-sutton-harlem-5k"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions\/840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}