Before this year, I ran at least 60 kms a week. My reasoning was I thought there was a hypothetical minimum number I needed to keep my “base” but also allow me to continue progressing as a runner. There wasn’t much science behind this and it’s showing.
Enter 2010 and the biggest running week I’ve done all year is 60 kms! Leading up to Saturdays race, a 10K in Ottawa, I had only run 3 times in two weeks. Not because of injury but that my focus is not on running at the moment.
The race for me went better than expected; considering my lack of mileage and travel/training in the last few weeks. I was shooting for top spot which had a payout of $500, I placed fourth, out of the money (the worst spot to be as one guy said to me). What was interesting though is I was able to hang with some quality runners (31:30, 2 x 32:30 mins /10K). It wasn’t till the 6K mark that my legs started to feel the discomfort that was setting in. From there it was a steady decline but I manged to keep things together to get a new PB; 33:50 (blew away my 5K PB with a 16:30 performance).
From the start of the race I stayed in a tight pack of 5 which after a few kms became 4. A surge by the top two individuals left a fight for third. I battled, attacked myself and really tried to crawl my way into that last spot. But on that day I just didn’t have the legs.
I’m interested to see what happens when my mileage does go up. Is it going to make me faster by allowing me to delay the onset of fatigue? This fall, we’re going to find out.
Thanks for reading,
Happy Trainin’
Cliff
Awesome race Cliff! Kudos! xo