Running Challenge Finished!

Success! I’ll make this update brief, with a focus on lessons learned.

The best decision I made was to start working with a coach. During the pandemic, my son Bear, who was 6 at the time, was trying to improve his mile time. I had him working with a coach, Jerome Eyana. At the time, I didn’t realize that he had been an Olympian for France in the 100m.

Jerome and I did eight sessions at the track in January. We didn’t really work on technique, or breathing, or anything technical; he thought my natural running form was good enough. The main thing we worked on was pacing.

If you’re the type of person who is doing a running challenge, you’re going to be good at pushing yourself. What I learned from Jerome is that it’s very easy to push yourself too hard. You can push yourself too hard in the macro sense, in that you train too many days a week, or too hard on a particular day. And you can push yourself too hard in a micro sense, in that you go out too hard on a particular lap. Jerome had the view that I needed to learn to run at a pace of around 94 seconds a lap. He wanted me to learn that any deviations from that pace, especially if early, would likely be punished severely. What I learned from my training is that even 5 seconds too fast on a particular lap can be quite costly in the 5k.

The training log for Jan is below. Note that there were a lot of rest days. Jerome would have preferred even a bit more rest.

Jan 2. 14 400s avg 1:32, walk in between

Jan 4. 12 400s avg 1.32, 40sec rest.

Jan 5. 8 800s, all 3:08 or less, walk 400 in between

Jan 6. 6 800, 3:07 avg, jog a lap in between

random injury flare up… took some time off.

Jan 14. 1.5 miles at 9:33, 8 min rest, 1 mile at 6:14

Jan 15. 6 800s, avg 3:08, 3 min in between

Jan 16. 1.5 miles at 9:33, rest 9 min, 1.5 miles at 9:30

Jan 17. Tried to do tennis and running in the same day. Overdid it, needed to take a break.

Jan 21. 2 miles at 12:52

Jan 23. 1.5 miles at 9:30, 10 min rest. 1.5 miles at 9:31

Jan 26. 1 mile at 6min. Rest 5 min. 1 mile at 6:15.

Notice that I never ran a 5k in training. If I were training on my own, I would have done multiple 5k’s as preparation. Jerome believes that running a 5k at 100% takes about a week of recovery time. You are better off doing more workouts where you approach your max heart rate, but stay short of your lactate threshold.

I began to see the value of this philosophy later in the month. On days like Jan 23, I’d finish the 1.5 miles at near max, and then a minute later my heart rate would be in the low 120s.

On race day, my thinking was that I would run 94 second laps until Chris passed me, and then, once that happened, I’d try my hardest to stay with him and then perhaps overtake him (so that he didn’t lap me once). I thought there was a chance he’d lap me twice, in which case I’d learn a thing about running talent and move on. I was concerned when I saw the treadmill workout he posted where he did 3 miles at 5:22 avg with 3 min rest in between. That was indicative of a time that might lap me twice.

Midway through my 10th lap, he started walking. I asked him if he conceded and he said yes, so I assumed he had either injured himself or gassed out completely. It turns out that he had temporarily forgotten about the side action on the no-handicap result. I walked/jogged it in, instead of finishing for my best time, so I don’t know where my 5k would have been. At 1.5 miles, I was at 9:10 and he was at 8:36. At 1.75 miles, I was at 10:05 vs 10:45. When he conceded, I was roughly where I wanted to be (at 94 sec per lap pace). I completed lap 9 at 14:10 vs 14:06 target. It’s hard to say of course, but I think I would have come in below target. My max heart rate during lap 10 (and throughout the race) was 178, which left a bit of room. Jerome thought I should finish the race in the high 180s (or 185 at a minimum).

My guess as to what happened with Chris is that it’s a slow track. It’s Florida; it’s in the low 80s; there’s some humidity; there’s people on the track; some wind; the track has some wear and tear. So my guess is that what he needed to do is just too hard in those conditions. When I raced Huck in Vegas (and the conditions there were truly dire), the feeling of being chased was a very bad feeling, and it did not work for me psychologically. I think, in this case, being the chaser was somehow the more psychologically taxing position.

I’m hungry for a new challenge now. I want to find a small group to take on the Big Loop in Central Park in under 40min.