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ESM

September 16, 2017 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: Hot as frick

Comments:
Not gonna lie, not looking forward to logging this at all, but there are some things that have to be said. The day started decently, I didn't feel too crappy just walking around, and I had a good size breakfast. I didn't get to have my normal Clif bar 3 hours before the race because we were out of them. I don't think I hydrated properly the day before and the morning of and that carried over to my race. The warmup and course jog felt good, nothing was hurting or sore, but I did feel generally lethargic from the miles. I'm going to have to get used to that. Once the race started, I ran managed to get out pretty well, but I needed to be closer to Silas. I big reason for the final gap was the fact that I got boxed out in the beginning and I couldn't catch up. My first mile was my best part of the race. I managed to make sure Silas's gap didn't widen from the initial gap, and my mile time was 5:15, which was about what I expected. The pain started to come after that, but I did decently at pushing through it, and my second mile was about 5:30. Not a great speed, but nothing terrible. My gap from Silas still wasn't super pronounced at this point. And then the 3rd mile came. That goddamn 3rd mile. Right near the 2 mile mark I started feeling insanely tired, much more tired than I had ever felt before, and my pace slowed wayyyy down. This is something I have to push through in the future, but it was really one of my first times experiencing it. I don't know if it was amplified by the dehydration, but it certainly wasnt helped by it. My last split was embarrassing, I had completely fallen apart. I think what happened was the combo of dehydration and tiredness coming all at once made me panic, which slowed me down a lot. I finished the race, and was dizzy as frick and had to lie down, but I rested some and drank water and I felt better. Overall, I give it a 2/10.

Things I did well: I felt really fast and really strong my first mile. I didn't try to "save" anything for later, and when I started feeling crappy even in the first 1/3rd of the race, I didn't slow down. Yes, I wasn't with Silas Per Se, which is bad, but at least I felt really strong. Also, fun note, this was the first race I have ever done where my legs were the limiting factor, not my cardio.

Things I did crappily: I didn't stick with the pack. I was feeling strong the first mile and could have easily stuck on their shoulders for at least 1.5 miles, if not more. I also didn't push through the pain of the last mile. It felt awful, it felt like my legs were going to stop working any moment, but I just have to push through anyway. There are no excuses for what I did on the last mile. Also, I needed to prepare better, get more sleep and drink more water, as well as have clif bars in supply.

Things I can improve on: Sticking with Ben, Noah, and Xannies. I don't understand why it is that they get ahead of me in races when I train just as hard. I need to get it out of my mindset that sticking behind someone is fine, that inevitably leads to their gap growing and growing. I need to run on the shoulders of my teammates, and you can bet I will be doing that for Tuesday and my runs. I think mentally if I run behind my teammates for all of my runs, I will run behind them in a race. I am sick of falling behind and going alone, I need to learn how to run in a pack. A lot of what I got from this race was frustration and anger, and hopefully, I can use that this coming week. I know I can run better races than what I just did, I have shown it in training, all I need to do is apply it.