Skip to main content

Papa John's 10 Miler

Hey blogosphere,

It's been a while. My bad.

So last weekend I went down to Louisville for the Papa John's 10 Miler. There was also some basketball game going on later that day? Something about the Final Four and teams from Kentucky or something? Yeah the atmosphere was definitely crazy with a Louisville vs. UK showdown.

Anyway, about the race: I ran 52:05 (about 5:12 pace) and got fifth (and 100 bucks!).

5th, behind 3 Africans and an Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier.

And $100? Yeah I'll take it.

So even though my pace was basically the same as 2 weeks ago (on a much flatter course), I was a lot happier with the race this time around.

5:12s felt a lot more comfortable this time around. Especially over the last 4 miles, I felt like I was able to finish much stronger than two weeks ago. I wasn't struggling just to finish; I was ratcheting the pace down trying to reel in 4th place. In fact, I felt like I could have kept going at that pace for at least 3 more miles.

So I'm taking all of that to mean that I'm in pretty good aerobic shape. Which is a good thing, since the marathon is a wholly aerobic race. I'm just not in fast VO2max shape. Which I haven't done much work on, since the marathon isn't much of a VO2max race.

All things considered, I'm a lot more pleased with this race than I was with the Heart Mini. Now it's just one more month (one month!?) til the Pig.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Base Training the Lydiard Way

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while, but just haven't really gotten around to it. This is for anyone using the summer to gear up for a fall season of racing, whether that's a marathon, road races, or cross country. That said, this is especially for you high school and college athletes. Summer is the most important time of the season. It's when you build your base -- everything that's to come later in the fall is determined by the quality of this base. In fact, some might even say that your end-of-season peak is limited by how well you trained over the summer. Arthur Lydiard believed this. And his philosophies still form the foundation of modern-day distance training. You've probably heard (and maybe internalized) many of the common critiques of Lydiard-style training: it's old and outdated , or it's too hard, or, most common, it's just a lot of long slow distance. And low slow distance makes for long slow runners . The lat...
2 comments
Read more

Why I Love Running At Withrow

One of my favorite places to do workouts and strides and general fast stuff is the track at Withrow High School in Hyde Park. No, it's not because of the newly renovated surface. No, it's not because it's a perfect 10-minute warmup and cooldown jog from my house. No, it's not because I'm a nerd and it has markings for both a 1600 and a mile. No, it's not because the school building forms a perfect "L" around the homestretch and first turn, sheltering the field from any drastic wind. No, it's not because I spent four years during college running workouts there. Actually, wait, that is part of it. The reason I love Withrow's track so much can be summed up like this: it's a true public track. If you've ever been to the track, then you know how packed it can get with people using it. And it's not just Withrow High School teams and random individuals -- the track is also regularly used by many other local high schools witho...
1 comment
Read more

My Unpopular Opinion, v2

With Cincinnati's very own Queen Bee Half Marathon coming up, I wanted to get this out there: I absolutely abhor all-women's races. I don't think they should exist. I don't even think they should be called races. I'm not going to link to any race websites because I don't want to give them the dignity. They may be worse than color runs and other novelty events in my book. Before you call me a sexist and a male chauvinist pig, hear me out: I don't think all-women's events are necessary any more . This isn't the era of race directors physically pulling Katharine Switzer out of a race specifically because she's a woman; rather, women make up the majority of participants in running events today. Thirty or forty years ago, when road running was an all-male endeavor, women's-only events definitely had a place. But now, nearly every race is a majority female affair. Road races are already women's races -- making some specifically only  for wo...
4 comments
Read more