Alright, Doomsday

Doomsday approaches. The Peachtree Road Race is the largest 10K in the world, registering over 55,000 participants. I ran this race in 2005 and it promptly caused my brief retirement from the sport after getting absolutely embarrassed by Lornah Kiplagat, as I crashed to a now-respectable 32:10. The goal for this race is to improve upon that time, and hopefully, it will translate into other niceties, including one of the Top 3 Georgians. We will see. I will have to run smart, as I am not near top form, but I am quite strong. Not fast yet, but in 2005, I split 15:26 / 16:44. This time around, I may want a 15:45 split on both ends. We shall see. This year, I am working 11-8PM at the Peachtree Expo and on Tuesday night, will be tearing down until 10PM, so I will understandably be a bit tired when I line up, but so will everyone else in a way.

Alright, so finally some pub from Peachtree. A couple of concerns: 1) the bib number I have is 326 and yet I am listed at 140. And 2) I woke up with a horrible ingrown toe-nail on my left big toe that is killing me everytime I step, so I will perform personal surgery on it today after my run. Otherwise, I may be eating too much, but I also had a 12-hour work day yesterday, so all should be good. Oh, right, the weather! It's 69-degrees this morning. If it is like this tomorrow with a calm wind, we are going to see some blazing times! Peachtree has never had anything less than 90-degree heat!
Alright, and so, my worst fears were confirmed at Peacthree and my dismal 33:01, 65th Place finish. This is the worst placing in my post-collegiate career and one of my worst performances ever. Granted, I did work a 2-day long, 12+ hour day expo pre-race, but I thought I could make it through unscathed. Boy, was I wrong. Oh, so what was my worst fear: not enough mileage to race a world-class 10k. Brutally disappointing, but necessarily real. Looking back at past US 10K Champs that I participated in, I should have been in the mix as I have placed Top 40th, twice, in my career. I am just not the same runner at the moment, but it's all good because the balance in my life has shifted to my career, which I am more than pleased with. As I've said before, now I've got Brian Sell and the Hansons carrying the racing load and stress. I can just do my work and be satisfied with being a competitive runner and not a national-class athlete.


So, why is this race bothering me, mentally? Probably because these emotions are probably what a lot of runners have had to go through in their careers as they enter more demanding jobs, rear families, and/or battle injury and fatigue. I need to be in acceptance of my current level of running, and once I remove denial, I can run in peace.

And, so, in traditional fashion of my personality, I have revamped my training and am going to take an hiatus from my Coach in order to build more flexibility into my training due to work constraints and so I won't feel guilt trying to follow a schedule. So, what I have done is take Shami's Paris Marathon build-up and adjusted it to my ability level and goals (5:20 pace for the Marathon). I have not yet adjusted the volume and am in the process of that debate, but feel that if I schedule in some local races, that would, by nature, reduce the volume. We'll see..

Great start this morning, as I really pushed myself for an hour in the streets of Kennesaw Mountain. We shall see if I can hold up to this punishing task, but I would rather be out of running maximizing my ability, than be undertrained and underperforming.

Last night, we drove out to Knoxville, Tennessee, at 10PM at night, arriving into Knoxville at 1:30AM. I had planned a 12K track workout, but found a rare 7M race in Knoxville that afforded me the opportunity to get some work in and visit a territory I had yet to step foot in... and so, what I get for being afraid of the scheduled 15 x 600M-200M workout was a dismal 7M tempo at 5:30-5:35 pace (ended up running 5:50's on the hills). Pat Gildea led the run and the pack through the mile, but when I heard 5:54, I just wanted to take off and run my race even though I felt completely depleted. By 3M I was in trouble in terms of depletion and had to stop and stretch. Caught the leaders again at 4M, but soon after had to stretch another 2 times as I just waltzed it in at right under 41-minutes. Not very pleased with the effort, as I am just not strong enough to run back-to-back workouts hard yet (yesterday ran for an hour faster than today). Longing for the days that I ran 35:22 for 7 hilly miles at Quad-City or 35:49 for 7.1 at Falmouth. I'll be back, just need to work very hard and be very patient.
Monday, 7-02-2007
4 Miles Recovery around the Kennesaw Mountain Loop in 26:45

Tuesday, 7-03-2007
4 Miles Recovery around the Kennesaw Mountain Loop in 26:49

Wednesday, 7-04-2007
Peachtree Road Race 10K in 33:01
10:06, 26:47 (16:40), 31:52 (5:05)

Thursday, 7-05-2007
7 Miles Regeneration around Pigeon Hill in 47:14

Friday, 7-06-2007
AM: 9 Miles Moderate through the Streets of Kennesaw in 59:57
PM: 7 Miles Easy around Pigeon Hill in 48:10

Saturday, 7-07-2007
Carter Mill 7-Miler in 40:56
5:54, 11:25 (5:31), 17:15 (5:49), 23:15 (5:59),
28:59 (5:44), 35:16 (6:17), 5:40

Sunday, 7-08-2007
17 Miles Moderate to Cheatham Hill and The Reserve in 1:44:24

Total
70 Miles (113K)

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